


The Sweet Love Between the Moon and the Deep Blue Sea

by momstiel, Tegami



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angel/Demon Relationship, Blow Jobs, Childhood Trauma, Christianity, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Kinda, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Talk about death, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but mostly just, completely random pov changes i'm so sorry, demonization of drugs i'm so sorry i tried my best, excessive use of tags, existential crises and angst, forgot that one, guardian angel!remus, i use remus's and sirius's bc stephen king told me to, love u, my protestant ass slipping anti-catholic propaganda into hp slash fanfiction, rockstar!sirius, singer!Sirius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:11:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momstiel/pseuds/momstiel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tegami/pseuds/Tegami
Summary: Sirius Black was okay, no matter how often Lily and James and his manager were going to ask him about it. He didn't need to cancel the tour, and he didn't need an assistant to play his babysitter, and he certainly didn't need a guardian angel to fall in love with.... wait, what?Or: the one where Sirius is lead singer of the rock band Raisin' Hell and not doing as well as he pretends he is, Remus is the world's most sarcastic guardian angel, and one Europe tour changes more than either of them expected.





	The Sweet Love Between the Moon and the Deep Blue Sea

**Author's Note:**

> thank you [minnie aka momstiel](https://momstiel.tumblr.com) for [your inspiring artwork](https://momstiel.tumblr.com/post/184948556954/here-is-my-art-for-the-wolfstar-big-bang) (that can also be found in the scene it depicts), and idea, and not murdering me for the mess I made out of the deadline.
> 
> thanks [laura](https://nimuehh.tumblr.com) for last-minute beta-ing, and my other irl friend that I can’t link because she doesn’t have a tumblr.
> 
> thanks to all the mods who organised this event and somehow didn’t go batshit insane over it. you’re all heroes.
> 
> thank you to spotify user ktgp26 for creating [this perfect wolfstar playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/ktgp26/playlist/4cQK2rsBvLxLGz8Njcs02Q?si=pF5yJtvCRa6Pgfr9sMJs-Q) that I listened to on repeat while writing this.
> 
> this story is 90% tooth-rotting fluff and 10% existential angst. mind the tags, please.
> 
> Edit: from the feedback I've gotten it's more of a 30% fluff / 70% angst ratio, so, you know. beware?

**13 July, Brussels, Belgium**

Sirius Black tore the hospital wristband off his arm with his teeth, and smiled. He was oddly proud of himself for successfully having checked off yet another box on the metaphorical "rock star stereotype" bingo sheet - especially since it had all been just a laughable accident.

The whole thing would be just hilarious, really, if it hadn't been for the prodding whispering nurses that had surrounded him for the last few days.

Because there was this: Sirius hadn't _meant_ to overdose. He'd overestimated himself was all. Of course, nobody was going to believe him, not with his history. Which was exactly why James and Lily would be the last two people to ever find out about this. All they would do was worry worry _worry_ and try to get Sirius to call quits on this tour, which wasn't happening anytime soon. They had their unborn baby, and Sirius had this.

Also, Sirius Orion Black did not need breaks. His life was one single holiday: one concert after another, one party after another, the most comfortable backstage lounges and always-filled minibars and most discreet hookups waiting for him wherever he went.

What kind of person would need to take a break from living their dream?

And there was this: Sirius Orion Black was doing just fine. He was sober, for Christ's sake. Well- had been, for several months over the winter. Honestly, Sirius was probably not going to count that one slip-up a few days ago. He'd been bored and feeling sorry for himself, and if he had been a bit smarter and anticipated that he wouldn't be able to handle the same dose as he used to, he would have come out of it just fine.

He _did_ come out of it just fine. He was somewhat tired, yes, and feeling a bit like he'd just gotten over a bad cold, but honestly? Sirius had had worse hangovers before the age of 14. If he just got a bit more sleep on the plane, and then some more tonight, and maybe tomorrow before the show, nobody would even notice.

Sirius pulled his hood a little further over his face and checked his phone. It was hard to navigate through the mass of notifications that had been waiting for him when he’d turned it on again this morning, but eventually he found the text thread with his manager and texted them that he was waiting outside the clinic.

The answer came seconds later.

_Of course you are, you idiot._

That was probably fair. Before he could answer, though, Joan's car rounded the corner and slowed to a halt in front of him.

(Technically, that was his own car. Since he only used it to get around when it was impossible to have his bike with him, though, Sirius kept thinking of it as his manager's.)

His phone rang, and he took the call before sliding into the backseat, only taking the fraction of a second to glance at the figure sitting next to him.

***

Remus Lupin quite literally hated everything.

Not only had he been sent on an earth mission again only centuries after the last one. (His superiors _knew_ how much he hated those. Sadistic bastards, all of them.) No, it wasn’t even the usual job looking after some Mother Teresa-like person that was too careless with themselves because they cared too much for those around them.

His job was to protect _Sirius Black_.

Remus had never understood what the decision over who was worth giving special protection to was based on. Quite frankly, he didn't have any illusions that he would understand if he was told. Most things above his (figurative) pay grade were explained as being part of The Divine Plan and he could silently put up with it, on most days.

He wished this was one of those days.

On the phone in his hands played a fan-made YouTube video describing the life and career of one Sirius Orion Black, teenage heartthrob and rockstar, and in all honesty, Remus did not see the point in himself being there. The only reason he could see for someone to be sent down here with no information but _KEEP AN EYE ON HIM_ was that Sirius would cause some kind of butterfly effect - that the world would end through a weird chain-effect of events started by “Raisin' Hell” not performing one of their stupid concerts one night.

Even Sirius Black’s band name was trying to mock him.

It wasn't that Remus thought Sirius deserved to die. It wasn’t that he thought _anyone_ deserved to die. But being aware of what came after death - and that it was quite the pleasant place at that – had shifted his perspective somewhat since he'd been a human himself.

Not that he remembered much of it, of his human life. He remembered more than most, which was part of the reason for Remus's grand distaste for being stuffed into a human shell (as if that would turn him back into one) and being sent down here.

He remembered the feeling of grass under his bare feet and the sun warming his hair and what it felt like to be exhausted at the end of a day or exhausted from rising too early. He remembered the feeling of grief at a death of someone at a point when he hadn't yet known what would come After, and the horror at realising his own days were running out too soon. Looking back at his life shortly before his death, so many decades shorter than he had been promised.

It was little enough that Remus wished he remembered more, and enough to make him very aware of how poorly this artificial "life" he lived for his missions reflected the real deal.

His soul never quite seemed to reach the fingertips of his loaned bodies and Remus could barely stand it.

"That idiot," mumbled Joan from the front seat. Remus looked up from his phone just when a car door was opened, and Sirius Black slid into the seat next to Remus.

Sirius Black was-

Well.

Sirius Black wasn't carrying a bag. That was one thing. Remus wondered why he hadn't called anybody to bring him at least some clothes for his hospital stay.

Another thing was that Sirius Black was _tall_. He was tall, and he wore a hoodie under his leather jacket, and he had one of his ears pierced all the way to the top, and when he pulled the hood away his hair looked still half-wet and ridiculous. He looked like absolute shit - strands of his hair sticking up, rumpled clothes that seemed to be the ones he had been admitted to the hospital in days ago, shadows under his eyes.

And even so, he was the most stunning person Remus had ever seen. Everything about him screamed money, but also there was this underlying mix of grace and doesn't-give-a-single-fuck-vibe that Remus found a thousand times worse.

Again: He hated everything.

"You absolute doofus," said Joan. "Did anybody recognise you just now?"

"Lily," said Sirius into his phone. And after a moment, "I'm really sorry. Just had a lot to do, weird sleep schedule, the usual."

Remus sat and tried hard not to stare over while he listened to Sirius lie to his friend without batting an eyelash. Again, he had no idea why The Divine Plan or whatever needed him to look after this one. He really should have asked more questions before coming down here instead of just grumbling and demanding the right to choose his own appearance, at least.

"Belgium," said Sirius. "Brussels. On my way to the airport. Don't worry, I didn't meant to ignore you like that, okay? I just needed to rest for a few days, ignore my phone for a bit."

Not that he regretted acquiring the right to choose his body. Being still aware of what it felt like to have a gender identity made it unnecessarily uncomfortable when his assigned appearance didn't align with what he felt he ought to look like.

"Me too, to be honest," said Sirius. "Lily, I have to go, but I promise I'll text James back in a moment. Tell him hi, and also that I'll call him once I land in Milan. And say hi to the bump."

After a pause, Sirius laughed, and Remus wondered if there was a voice coach that trained rich people to have pretty laughs. "I promise. Bye, Lily." He hung up, and leaned forward to Joan. "That was disaster control. Rest assured, the press knows about nothing."

Joan turned around, one eyebrow arched over their thick glasses. "What?"

“If there’s one person that keeps up with my Google alert more than me it's Lily and James, and they know of nothing, so there.”

Joan just stared at him for a few seconds before turning back. “Right.”

Remus had gone back to staring at his phone in favour of looking like he wasn’t feeling utterly out of place in that car. When Sirius Black finally looked over at him, it made his neck prickle.

A long moment passed before Sirius said, "And you are?"

Before Remus could as much as turn, Joan's voice came from the front seat. "Your new assistant."

There was a pause. "I don't need an assistant."

"No, see, that's where you're wrong. You really, really do. You just don’t know because I have been doing three quarters of what an assistant is supposed to do, and one quarter has fallen under the table, which is what landed us in this position in the first place, if you ask me. So this is Remus Lupin, and I swear to God if you try to fire him without my okay I am going to change careers and open a tulip store in Madrid.”

"Remus Lupin," Sirius said. "That's a made-up name."

Remus put his phone into the pocket of his jacket and looked up. "Ironic, coming from you, Mister Sirius Orion Black."

Remus immediately regretted having given up the cover of being busy on his phone, because staring into Sirius Black's eyes was a whole different level of distracting than simply sitting next to him. He couldn't bring himself to move for long enough that Remus was somewhat sure he had unknowingly entered a staring contest.

He looked away.

"Well," said Sirius, sounding way too smug for his own good, "Touché. I suppose I'll have to arrange myself with the situation."

Something in the tone of his voice made Joan whirl around in their seat, fixing Sirius with a gaze that sent shivers down Remus's back. "If you even so much as think about doing anything _remotely_ unprofessional with-"

"Tulips,” said Sirius. “Madrid. Got it." He grinned like he had gotten absolutely nothing.

Remus went back to staring at his phone. He couldn’t wait for this job to be over.

***

**14 July, Milan, Italy**

Years of sharing his bedroom with other teenage boys came in handy surprisingly often in Sirius’s current life. He didn’t know what he would have done without the ability to fall asleep quite literally anywhere. After napping in the car to the airport, in the boarding area and on the plane, he almost felt like a human being again. Once he'd gotten another good night's sleep, nothing would stop him from carrying on with his concert tomorrow like nothing had ever happened.

Except that he had an assistant now, Sirius realised as he got into the backseat of the new car that would be driving them around Milan. Remus hadn't talked much their entire way here, looked at his phone a lot, but to be fair, Sirius hadn't been conscious to be talked to.

And anyway, the entire situation was laughable at best and ridiculous at worst. Of course, of fucking _course_ Joan would go and get Sirius a babysitter. The only thing that even surprised him was that Joan did not know him better by now than to hire somebody as ridiculously attractive as Remus Lupin.

Then again, maybe they had planned this as form of punishment for Sirius's reckless behaviour.

"So," Sirius tried as the car rolled off the airport's pick-up lane. "This is what you do for a living? Cleaning up behind rich, entitled people?"

This made Remus glance at him, at least. "Oh, no. You're the first rich entitled person I work for, actually."

Sirius automatically glanced at the front seat before he remembered that his manager was in the other car, pretending to be making important phone calls rather than stretching out on the backseat. "How in all heavens did you get Joan to hire you for this one, then?"

Remus shrugged, looked back out of his window and smiled a small, private smile. "I can be quite persuasive. And I'm good at most things I put my mind to."

Sirius still couldn't quite believe it. Their drivers had a minimum of five years work experience, and then his management went and hired somebody who had barely been out of school five years ago?

Not that he was complaining, not if it meant that he could see what it looked like when the street lights flickered over Remus's face.

Certainly not complaining.

"So you're doing this- why? For student credit?"

Remus's mouth twitched. "I don't think that's how student credit works."

Sirius shrugged and ran a hand through his hair, getting stuck in the tangles that had formed from sleeping in weird places and not taking the hood of his jacket off almost all day. He started to untangle the knots with his fingers. "Me neither. You just seem young, and not stupid, so it made sense in my head that you're, well, planning to do something with your life."

Remus glanced at him again, silent for a moment. Then, "Well, right now, I am doing _this_ with my life. I just wanted something a bit different, I suppose. New experiences and all that. Also, it's well-paid."

Sirius laid his head on the side and tried for his best version of an innocent smile. "So your decision has nothing to do with working for 'Britain's Hottest Celebrity of Two Thousand Eighteen,' as appointed by Glamour Magazine?"

Remus didn't even look at him. "To be honest, I didn't know who you were until a few days ago."

Sirius abandoned his hair in favour of clutching at his chest dramatically. "Remus Lupin, I'll let you know that I would be personally offended if I believed a single word of that."

Sirius wasn't being arrogant; he was being realistic. His face had graced enough billboards, magazines, TV screens and every other surface imaginable that it was close to impossible for a bloke of Remus's age to never even have heard of him.

"I would say that you're quite self-absorbed to assume it impossible that a single person hasn't heard of you, but you're probably right. I might have been living under a rock."

"You can say that," Sirius snorted, looking out of his own window. They were passing an ancient church lit up in the evening's darkness. It was beautiful to a point that seemed surreal. "A rock the size of the moon, I'd say."

Sirius heard Remus sigh, but he didn't say anything else. Sirius forced himself to keep looking at the city passing them outside and only sneaked a handful of looks over at Remus's softly lit form.

Joan met them in the usually fancy hotel lobby. Sirius still remembered the early days, their first tour that had been big enough to warrant accommodation like this, and how it had made his skin crawl. While the others had been delighted by the luxury, Sirius had just felt taken back to the summer holidays he’d spent with his family jetting all over Europe. But he wasn’t going to be the person complaining about how nice their hotels were, so he got used to it, and by now all he could think was _bed._

When Joan announced that due to the spontaneous addition to their booking (aka Remus) the hotel didn't have another single-bed apartment, which meant that somebody would have to share, Sirius didn't hesitate to offer. Again, he could sleep quite literally anywhere under any circumstances, but silence was the one thing that sometimes had him lie awake. Sirius would have chosen the noise that came with rooming with James, Peter and whatever poor fourth bloke had been assigned to their room over a giant empty hotel room anytime.

One look from Joan was enough to let Sirius know that they were suspecting very different reasons for Sirius’s willingness to share a room with Remus.

"Tulips," said Sirius. "I know. Let's go."

***

**15 July, Zurich, Switzerland**

So far, being Sirius Orion Black's guardian angel was, frankly put, underwhelming. Remus didn't know what he'd expected Sirius to get up to at night, but it wasn't, well, sleeping through it. By morning, when he woke up with a silently snoring Sirius in the other bed, Remus almost questioned his decision to call the hotel beforehand and suggest that there would be difficulties with their booking. Still, he figured that if he wasn't going to have a literal eye on Sirius, there really would be no point in him being there.

For a second, Remus wondered if the hospital stay might have been enough of a wake-up call for Sirius to mend his ways, but he trusted The Divine Plan enough to know he would not be there if that was the case.

Remus was still somewhat proud of his idea to become Sirius's assistant, since his job now was quite literally to follow him around all day. Joan had given him special instructions to keep an eye on his alcohol and drug use, too, and Remus had nodded as if that wasn't the literal reason he was there.

The day before a concert was somehow as stressful as it was boring, and all Remus could do was follow Sirius around the concert hall’s backstage area as he did sound checks, short interviews, and more sound checks. At some point, Remus had Joan explain their mail system to him and when he looked up, Sirius was gone. Remus found him curled up in an armchair in his room, right next to a perfectly comfortable couch, fast asleep. Remus used the moment to steal the key from the locked liquor cabinet and pocket it.

After the concert, Remus waited in Sirius's room with the pretence of needing his okay for a row of appointments with him. He wasn't sure those were things he was usually informed about before he was in his car being driven to the location, but Remus needed the excuse to see if Sirius was planning to get up to something later in the night.

It took him forever to show up, first of all. Remus could hear the bass from his place on the couch, and the cheering, and they seemed to give encore after encore. He wondered if things like these were planned beforehand or if they were different each night. To be frank, Remus knew close to nothing about concert culture. He hadn’t seen the need to keep up with most parts of popular culture the last few dozen years.

But he was a fast learner. Joan had assigned him a phone and a notebook the first day and while it had taken him an hour or so to fully understand the concept of computers and the internet, it had only taken him another half an hour to set up both devices for his needs. A few days later and Remus started to find quite a liking in writing business emails. There was something extremely satisfying about having an empty inbox.

When Sirius finally did come back to his room, he was drenched in sweat, his stage shirt clinging to him, exhausted-looking and positively beaming. He looked gorgeous and Remus tried to keep his eyes on the laptop screen in front of him.

"There you are," said Sirius, falling into the nearest leather armchair, the one he’d fallen asleep in earlier. "I was looking for you backstage."

"Here I am," Remus echoed stupidly. "I just needed to go over some appointments with you. The-"

Sirius waved him off. "But what did you _think_?"

Remus blinked. "What?"

"About the show? What did you think?"

"Oh. I didn't watch, actually. I was working. Sorry."

Sirius just stared at him for a second before he started to laugh. "Are you kidding? Missing out on the only fun part of touring. I really have no idea why you're willingly doing this job."

Remus frowned. "You don't like touring?"

“Meh,” said Sirius. "Not particularly. I mean, I don't mind because it's worth it for the music, and the fans, but it used to be a lot more fun when the others were around. It was like boarding school never ended, just with more money and more stress, I suppose."

Remus hummed. Something about the way Sirius was looking at him through the remains of his show-induced adrenaline high, pupils more black than grey, made his face heat up, and he hated that he knew how much it showed.

"It’s amazing that this even still works, isn’t it?" Remus said for the sake of talking. "With James and Lily gone, I mean. Publicity-wise."

Sirius shrugged. "Mostly it's just that tours are more boring. But honestly, if anything, the whole mess helped us. Publicity-wise. Magazines ate up that whole 'Rockstars on baby break' crap, and then the whole drama about Peter made them love us even more."

Peter. Remus had read more articles about what had happened with Peter Pettigrew than he thought should have been written in the first place. Peter, childhood friend to them all. Peter, running to the press and selling stories about Sirius’s excessive drug use and private details about James and Lily’s relationship. Peter, being thrown out of the band when they all found out.

More than anything, Remus wanted to know how the mess had looked from Sirius’s perspective. "What exactly happened with Peter?” he asked.

Sirius blinked at him. "I repeat: Have you been living under a _rock_?"

“No, I know what everyone has been told has happened. I just wanted to know if it’s true, if you don’t mind.”

Sirius snorted, and stretched to reach his pack of cigarettes and lighter from the nearby dresser. "Most of it is true. I think our official press statement was that all of his stories were made up for attention, which is an exaggeration. A lot of them, though.” He fiddled with the packet before tapping out one cigarette. “We'd known him for years, the rat. I still can't wrap my hand around why he did it."

Sirius lit the cigarette, took his first, deep drag and held it in his lungs as he leaned his head back onto the backrest. The move looked so smooth and showed off his neck so well that Remus was sure Sirius had practiced it before and knew exactly what he was doing.

He hated himself for the effect it still had on him.

Was smoking the kind of thing Remus was supposed to keep Sirius from? It seemed like the obvious lesser evil in comparison to harder, more illegal drugs, but just to be sure, Remus used the moment of inattention and plucked the cigarette from Sirius's hand.

"Heeey," said Sirius, the smoke finally escaping his mouth and nose with the exclamation.

Remus took a deep drag himself before saying, "Smoking is bad for your health."

This startled a laugh out of Sirius that Remus was entirely too proud of. "You _have_ to be the world's worst assistant."

Remus shrugged. "I'm not holding out for a trophy or anything."

***

**17 July, Vienna, Austria**

Perks of having Remus Lupin as an assistant number one: not missing a radio interview he would have most definitely slept through if he hadn't had somebody there to throw him out of bed.

Downside of having Remus Lupin as an assistant number one: having a cute guy around with impossibly soft-looking curls that Sirius wanted to do nothing but sink his fingers into, and not being _allowed_. This was going to be Sirius’s downfall. He felt a bit like a dog being lead through a pet store that was told to stay away from the treats.

***

**19 July, Berlin, Germany**

Had Remus mentioned how bad he was at his job?

There was no explicit clause forbidding angels from telling their subjects of protection about their angelic identity. However, there was the common understanding that doing so equalled, say, a teacher explaining their disciplinary methods to misbehaving children. It was pointless and only made everyone's job harder, and would most probably make you the laughingstock of the angelic realms when you returned.

But of course, there was no real danger behind it. There were enough nut-heads running about trying to make others believe in angel sightings on the daily that one or two more wouldn’t make a difference.

“Where are you going?”

Remus had recognised his own patronising tone before he could look up to see Sirius's deadly stare from the doorway. “I am going out, _mum_.”

Remus rolled his eyes and put the book down he'd bought at the airport that afternoon. “Very funny. And where exactly?”

Sirius slumped against the room's door frame with an exaggerated groan. “I don't _know_ yet.” In a second, he was standing up straight again and smirked with an idea. “Why don't you come with me and find out?”

Remus shrugged and got up. “Sure, okay.”

To his disappointment, it only took Sirius a second to shake out of his surprised look and laugh. “That was _much_ easier than expected.”

***

Later, Remus would tell himself that he hadn’t enjoyed himself that evening. He would think about how music was definitely not supposed to be this loud, how utterly stupid humans were for spending their time being so drugged out of their minds (their most precious possession) that they wouldn't even remember the night. He would complain about how it was absolutely impossible to keep track of Sirius Orion Black in too-loud clubs that used the kind of lights that made Remus's eyeballs hurt, or on a sidewalk overflowing with drunks. And tourists. And drunk tourists. He would remind Sirius, again and again, how reckless it was of him to prance around where everyone could, and would, and did, recognise him.

It wasn't even the people who went up to them that were annoying. It was those that you didn't even notice until you turned your head just so and caught a glimpse of a flash going off, or a phone being held up without the blink of an eye. Remus didn't have a single reason to care about pictures of him being spread on the internet, but on the behalf of Sirius's privacy, he was _pissed_.

But during the night, when it was happening, Remus was too transfixed by _everything_ to think too much about any of his complains.

“Everything” meaning Berlin at night: not a single star was visible, but everything about the city seemed in a race to make up for it. People wore the most magnificent clothes, sometimes magnificently ugly, and each person looked like they were sure the city and the night belonged to them. There was art and history and lights and old beautiful buildings and new beautiful buildings and old ugly buildings and new ugly buildings at every corner, and Sirius started dragging Remus on by the elbow whenever he stood staring at something for too long.

But most of all, “everything” meant _Sirius Orion Black_. It was Remus's luck that it was his literal job to keep an eye on him, because he found it was near impossible to take his eyes _off_ him. Sirius hadn't made much of an effort in dressing down to avoid being recognised, or if he did, it was a hilarious attempt: ripped black jeans, grey shirt, a red biker jacket with spikes adorning the shoulders that he seemed to be particularly fond of judging by how well-worn it was, his usual black gloves. It seemed impossible to walk past Sirius on the street and not do a double-take, because he was so absolutely gorgeous that Remus kind of hated it.

He almost told him so, when they were walking along a small river on their way to a club Sirius had been to during their last tour but couldn't remember the exact location of. Remus almost told him right there how fucking pretty he was and that he had better recognise and appreciate that, or so help him.

But Sirius knew all of this. So instead, Remus snatched the cigarette and lighter out of his hands, lit it between his own lips and threw the lighter in the next waste bin they passed. Remus glanced at him, expecting a fight, but Sirius's lips were just curled in disbelieving amusement.

They never did find the club, but it didn't matter much to Sirius, who got sidetracked by a particularly horrid techno-rendition of one of his own songs spilling out of a pink door. The bar behind it looked like the living room of a group of Barbie-obsessed squatters, and Sirius seemed to love it.

“I'M NOT SUPERFICIAL,” said a cardboard sign somebody had taped to the pink wall. “I LIKE PENETRATION.”

The moment the entire bar turned around and realised that Sirius Black was entering their establishment would go down as one of Remus's most satisfying memories. It was hilarious, watching face after face morph from confusion, to disbelief, to ecstatic laughter in alcohol-induced slow-motion.

Granted, Remus could have done without spending the next two hours watching Sirius talk to and take pictures with every single person in the tiny bar, but at least he got free drinks, too. He chose not to let the alcohol affect him too much, but it was nice to feel the slight buzz under his skin again after such a long time, even if it was a rather poor imitation of the real thing.

In retrospect, Remus kind of wished he'd let himself get full-out drunk. Then he would have had an excuse for letting Sirius Black vanish on him better than “I was too polite to stop this guy I just met from telling me the 'drunk history' version of his life”.

It was 4 am when Remus looked up and realised Sirius was nowhere in sight. The last time he could remember seeing him had been some time ago when Sirius had obtained a new lighter as well as a pair of red plastic devil's horns from a drag queen and thrown an extremely satisfied smile at Remus.

“Sorry,” Remus said as he stood up from his place at the bar. The guy simply shrugged and turned the other way.

Where the hell had Sirius gone off to? Remus pushed his way through the room that had become increasingly overfilled as people had started texting their friends about Sirius. Remus found the drag queen he'd seen him talk to sitting in the same spot on a shabby couch.

“Pardon,” he said. “But do you know where Sirius is?”

The queen looked up at him with a bemused smile. “Sorry, you just missed him,” she said. “Left a few minutes ago.”

Remus breathed out. A few minutes in this part of the city meant that he could be anywhere. “I swear to Go- to fuck. I let him out of my eyes for one minute and-”, he sighed. “Well, thanks.”

Remus had already turned to leave when the drag queen said, “Wait.” Remus looked back, frowning. “Are you his boyfriend, or what?”

Remus couldn't help but snort. “Something like that,” he said, and pushed his way to the door.

It was cold for a July night, and Remus wrapped his arms around himself as he looked up and down the street. The only people he could see were a handful of smokers sitting at a small table in front of the bar, talking in German.

“I'm sorry,” Remus said to them, not very hopeful. “Have you seen where Sirius Black has gone off to?”

The group stared at him for long enough that Remus wondered if they didn't understand English, until finally, one of them said, “What do you need to know that for?”

Remus tried not to get irritated about how the entire bar had apparently grown protective over Sirius in the two hours that they had been in his presence. It would have been easier if their distrust hadn't been directed at him.

“I'm his husband,” said Remus, unsmiling.

After a beat, three of them pointed silently down a street opposite of the bar.

“Thank you ever so much,” said Remus, and started walking.

For a moment, Remus wondered if they had just fucked with him. The street was nothing but a hundred metres of apartment buildings before it reached a dead end where a fence was cutting your way off to the river. Just when Remus was about to turn around and force the group to tell him the truth, he saw that there were two figures by the fence, so he kept going.

The nearer he got, the faster Remus made his steps as the sound of people fighting reached him.

“Fuck _off_ ,” he heard somebody say.

“I will, once you give me that goddamned- Stop filming!”

When he got there, Remus still hadn’t gotten a grasp of the situation. Sirius was standing opposite a man he vaguely remembered seeing around the bar, who was aiming his phone camera at Sirius the entire time through their fight.

A cut on Sirius’s cheek bone was bleeding down his face.

“Sirius,” said Remus to draw both of their attention to himself. This turned out to be a mistake as the guy apparently felt threatened by being outnumbered and threw a fist at Remus that he could only barely dodge.

“Stop,” said Remus, and the guy did. He straightened up and blinked at Remus as if he didn’t fully understand why he wanted to be doing what he was told, all of a sudden.

“Give me that,” said Remus, gesturing to the phone dangling from his hand.

He did. Remus stopped the video, and deleted it. There were a few dozen pictures and videos in the camera roll from the night, some of them of Sirius throwing up outside, and he deleted those as well before handing the phone back.

“You’ll want to throw that phone away when you get home. No, don’t do that. Donate it to one of those places that somehow make money from the parts and use them for good causes, okay? You can keep the sim card.”

The guy nodded again, and smiled.

“Bye,” said Remus.

“See ya,” said the guy, turned, and walked off.

Remus turned.

Sirius was leaning against the fence, and stared at him. He looked exhausted, but his face was completely blank. Remus noticed then that behind the fence were steps leading down to the river.

He sighed. He could have told him, right then, to forget anything strange had ever happened. Should have. But it was late, and he was tired, and messing with people’s heads like that always left them with a mushy feeling when they tried to remember what had happened, which tended to make them distrust you on the long run.

So Remus climbed over the low fence, and sat down. It only took Sirius a few seconds to follow suit.

Remus waited and watched him light a cigarette with his newly obtained lighter. Letting him smoke seemed like the least he could do against the confusion.

“So,” said Sirius, breathing out the smoke. “What the fuck was that?”

Remus just stared ahead. The view was far from beautiful, pieces of garbage floating past them in the water from time to time and abandoned industrial buildings on the other side of the river, but behind those, the city sparkled with neon lights. “What do you think it was?”

“I think,” said Sirius, “That I either didn’t puke everything back out, or you’re not what you say you are.”

Remus frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Sirius shrugged. “Somebody put something into my drink, and I noticed too late. It’s why I went outside to throw up in the first place.”

“Was it that guy?” Remus asked. He started to regret letting him off so easily.

“Dunno. Maybe he was just outside and followed me then. It happens. People get bold like that at night.”

“People become arseholes at night is what you mean,” grumbled Remus.

Sirius just looked at him. “So it’s option two, then? You’re not a student working for credit?”

Remus almost groaned. “I _told_ you I’m not a student.”

“What I mean is that _that_ ,” he gestured vaguely down the street where the guy had gone off to, “Wasn’t normal. Explainable. I would assume I’ve been hallucinating, but I’ve had those before, and that’s not what it’s like.”

Remus just wanted Sirius to say it. If he would have guessed right away, he could have told himself that it hadn’t been his fault that Sirius had found out. This whole conversation forcing himself to say it out loud would make things back in heaven so much more embarrassing for him.

But if there was one thing Remus was good at, it was not listening to what other people were saying about him. And so he said, “I’m here to look after you.”

“Yeah,” said Sirius, cigarette in mouth. “Like an assistant.”

“No,” said Remus, fully expecting to be laughed at. “Like a guardian angel.”

He was wondering what he could do to prove this to Sirius. Suddenly, he needed him to believe him so badly that he started to panic about the possibility that he wouldn’t.

But Sirius just stayed silent for a while, and smoked, and stared out on the water.

Just when Remus was about to bum a cigarette from him just to have something to do with his hands, Sirius spoke up.

“So you’re here, why? To keep me from sinning my homosexual arse into hell?”

Remus stared at him. “What?” he said. “ _What_? That’s the first thing you think of? _No_.”

Sirius shrugged. “Seems to be a very important part of the bible to a lot of people,” he said.

Remus wondered if Sirius’s family, this mysterious entity that he refused to address in interviews, who were supposed to be famous in their own, rich circles, were part of “a lot of people”. “No. Just, no. The bible was written by humans, and humans are awful. No offense. You were made the way you were made, why would God forbid you to be the way you are? I’m gay, for fuck’s sake, and became a goddamned angel still. Also, the whole concept of sinning is extremely misunderstood by you people, anyway.”

Sirius stared at him for so long he had to relight what was left of his cigarette.

The next time he spoke up he was crushing the stump under his boot. “Two things,” he said, and tapped a new cigarette out of his packet. “One, who were you before you were an angel?”

Remus held his hand out, and Sirius handed him his lit cigarette wordlessly before lighting himself a new one. They both deserved this right now.

“The short answer is that I have no idea,” said Remus. “The long answer is that I know who I was, because I still am him, and because I know what body and what age I’m comfortable in. I never figured out when I lived, though, or when I died.”

“That’s,” said Sirius, “Sad as fuck.”

“You tell me. Ask your second thing.”

Sirius turned to face Remus fully. “Why me?” he asked. “I know people tell you that everyone has an angel looking out for them and all that crap, but seeing as not half of humanity can be like you, that’s not true, right? So why me?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Remus said truthfully. Sirius snorted and turned toward the river again. “I’m just doing my job, basically, and those things are always just explained to me by being important for The Divine Plan.” Sirius glanced over. “Don’t ask. But if The Divine Plan wants you to be safe, there’s got to be a good reason. I’m just too low in the chain of things to know about it.”

Sirius nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

Remus watched him carefully for a minute. He wasn’t freaking out, which was a great start. Maybe Sirius really was too drunk to care, or too done with life. Maybe it was the whole artist thing.

“You know,” Sirius finally said, “For some reason the only thing I can focus on right now is that at least I can be sure that there is an actual hell I could raise one day if I tried hard enough.”

“Oh, God no,” said Remus. “There is no hell, actually. How awful would that be? No.”

“What,” said Sirius, “Why not?”

“Didn’t you hear me say that your whole concept of sinning is messed up?”

Sirius’s expression was so horrified that Remus almost started to laugh. “But,” said Sirius, “But the band name!”

“Sirius Black, are you saying that you would rather have hell exist if it meant that your band name would make more sense?”

Sirius opened his mouth, and closed it again. “Not if you say it like that I don’t,” he finally said.

“Thought so,” said Remus, and stood up.

 

 

***

**21 July, Oslo, Norway**

Remus had started watching the shows from backstage. He still didn’t understand why so many people were willing to put up with the standing, the crowd, the noise, (the borderline blasphemic band name). But standing backstage, watching Sirius from the sidelines, Remus almost enjoyed himself.

Almost.

Raisin' Hell's stage show was impressive, although it didn't use much in the way of special effects. Sirius Black on stage was show enough, and he was well aware of it. Even without the help of his usual band, he commanded the attention of every single fan the second he came on stage and didn't let it go. Remus was only too aware that the effect didn’t pass him by, and he’d earned disapproving glances from Joan several times by now. He didn’t understand how they could not be amazed by the force that was Sirius Black, but maybe Joan was just too stressed and annoyed to pay attention.

Most of the time, Sirius wore his stupid red leather jacket at the beginning of the show, although it quickly got discarded after the first songs, sweat already dripping down his face. Sirius ran across the stage during his songs, he flirted with about every single audience member individually, he flipped his hair and did the Freddie Mercury - microphone stand thing and his voice never broke, not once. The most incredible thing was that he didn't do the same show twice. He was purely in the moment and Remus felt electrified watching him every damn night.

There was a verse in one song that usually ended in Sirius moaning into the microphone, holding on to dear life and bucking his hips against the stand.

Remus checked his phone during that part.

Usually, Sirius did three encores before calling it a night, although they had a fourth song ready if the crowd wouldn't shut up. That's how they had the show planned out, anyhow. During the concert in Oslo, though, the crowd would not stop chanting, even after they had turned all the lights back on, even after Sirius and the other temporary band members had told them to have a good night about a million times. Remus was pretty sure they didn't even have another song prepared. Still, Sirius pushed past the worried-sounding group of band members and Joan backstage, saying, "I got this."

Now, Remus had faith in Sirius's stage presence more than in anything else about him, but he had been counting his drinks, and Sirius was anything but sober at that point. His voice was rough and his hair was plastered on his neck and face and he looked incredible, but also _done_.

The crowd absolutely lost it at Sirius coming back to stage alone with a guitar. Remus hadn't even known Sirius could play.

Joan elbowed Remus in the side. "Film that," they said.

"Do you know something that I don't?" he asked, and reached for his phone.

"Well, I know that he's either about to make a drunken fool out of himself or pull a full Sirius Black and bring the performance of his lifetime, and we'll want to have good footage in either case."

Remus wanted to ask more, but Sirius was already talking into the mic again. He'd pulled on his black hooded sweater that made him look like he was about to curl up in front of a TV instead of on stage in front of thousands of people screaming his name, promising them another song.

"I don't have anything else prepared, I'm afraid," he said, and over the outraged shouts, "But I'm not above improvising. Do any of you guys have a wish for a song you'd like to hear me cover?"

Remus grimaced at the volume of the shouts assaulting the stage. He didn't know how Sirius survived this every night.

Sirius was laughing into the microphone. "Maybe something a bit older? Don't want to break any copyright laws, you see. Oh, 'Scream and Shout,' we'll have to do that with James some time, he'd love that." He listened, and laughed again. "Wait, I'm hearing 'Hallelujah'? How about that one?"

Sirius was looking directly at Remus when he said it, and Remus had to gather all of his inner strength not to either roll his eyes or blush so hard he set his hair on fire. He still wasn’t over Sirius accepting the whole angel revelation without anything resembling a mental breakdown.

The crowd shouted in agreement.

"Oh, why not, I like the irony. Alright," said Sirius, with a glance to the giant band logo behind him. He tried out some chords on his guitar, and immediately stopped. "Okay, nope, I can't do that without looking it up. Just a minute."

Sirius pulled his phone out, presumably google searching for the chords or lyrics, and called for someone backstage to come and bring him a music stand.

Finally, with his phone propped up before him, Sirius thrummed the first chord, said, "Let's see," and started playing.

The audience fell silent for the instrumental open, and then, Sirius started singing.

He started out silent and soft, his lips brushing against the microphone in front of him as his voice climbed through the first verses as nothing more than a murmur.

His first 'Hallelujah' was soft and with a lot of feeling, and Sirius glanced at Remus again, and gave him a self-satisfied grin. Remus was going to kill the git for being too damn cheeky for his own good.

Sirius started the second verse and Remus forced his hand to stay still.

_"Well your faith was strong but you needed proof_

_You saw her bathing on the roof_

_Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya,_

_She tied you-"_

Sirius stopped singing, and after a second, his fingers stopped moving. He stared, and blinked, and turned around completely. He wiped an arm across his face. The crowd was dead silent.

Remus was convinced that Sirius was going to throw up on stage, but then he turned around again, eyes closed, then open, took a breath, and resumed playing.

_"She tied you to her kitchen chair_

_She broke your throne and she cut your hair_

_And from your lips she drew the hallelujah."_

Sirius's voice climbed from mournful into such a show of malice that by the end of the verse, the 'hallelujah' was nothing but a hateful spit into the microphone. Remus stopped breathing. He put so much pure hatred and bitterness into this single word that Remus felt tears prick in his eyes. He had to physically remind himself to keep the phone held up in his hand.

Sirius continued the song in the same fashion; turning lyrics that had been intended to be mournful into the kind of exhausted resentment only someone crushed by the world could muster. Remus reminded himself that he should be at least slightly offended by Sirius mocking the Lord's name, but it was hard to be mad at somebody who sounded so _wrecked_.

When it was over, the crowd must have flipped out, but Remus couldn't hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. He wanted to scream his frustration out, to run onto the stage and hug Sirius and never let him go, squeeze the hurt out of him.

Instead, he watched as Sirius said one last goodnight, and walked towards them. He remembered to end the video as Sirius walked past them, face impassive, mumbling "shower."

***

When Remus knocked at Sirius's door half an hour later and let himself in, he was surprised to find that the other had not lied about taking a shower. Remus wasn't surprised, however, to find him curled up in one of the armchairs, both hands holding onto a glass of wine, staring at nothing.

Sirius smiled when he saw Remus, although it wasn't one of his usual cheeky ones. "Hey there, angel," he said. "Here for business?"

Remus let himself fall into the too-soft couch next to Sirius. "When am I not," he said. And then, "I liked the show."

Sirius's eyes seemed to lighten up at that. Wasn't he used to people telling him how much they loved his shows? "What did you think about my little religious encore?"

"It was," Remus started.

Beautiful, of course. Heavenly. But also fatally pessimistic, heartbreaking.

“Very ironic."

"Hmmhm," said Sirius. He closed his eyes and rolled his head around in a way that made Remus wonder how much more he'd had to drink before he'd showed up. Then, with his eyes still closed, "That really happened, you know."

Remus couldn't for the life of him figure out the context of that statement. "What did?"

"My mother," said Sirius, and opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. "When I was 12, I refused to get my hair cut short. So she tied me to a chair, and she did it herself."

He got up and sat down next to Remus, bringing his face so close to the other's face that he had to remind himself not to shrink back.

"Here," said Sirius, turning his head and folding his ear over with a finger. "That's where that's from."

Between his piercings, on the top of Sirius's ear, there was a gash. The skin was parted and had grown back that way, barely noticeable, and Remus might have taken it for the result of a ripped-off piercing.

Remus swallowed. And he swallowed again. Sirius looked into his eyes for a second longer before leaning back and taking another sip of the wine still in his hand. He let the glass linger at his lips for a moment, thinking, and said, "I wasn't even struggling at that point," before draining the glass.

“That is-”

Remus Lupin had never considered himself bad at his job. He wasn't the most motivated employee, so much was clear, but sitting there with his brain empty of things to say, he began to consider other career options. He was a bloody angel, so why couldn't he think of a single comforting thing to say?

“Yeah,” Sirius finished the sentence for him, his eyes staring a straight whole through Remus’s skull as he refused to look away first. Not this time.

“Tell me,” Sirius said. “What’s it like to die?”

Remus swallowed. “I’m not sure.”

Sirius’s smile was humourless. “What kind of angel _are you_? Isn’t heaven, like, your whole thing?”

“I guess,” said Remus. He started to wish desperately for a cigarette, although he wasn’t sure that it was possible for him to get addicted to them. “I mean, I can tell you what heaven’s like. But I don’t properly remember what it’s like to die.”

“Remember,” said Sirius. “I forgot that you already died, once. What qualifies people to become angels, anyhow?”

“Angels are just humans who died before their time,” he said, a phrase he’d heard so often it had almost lost its meaning. “At least that’s what they make you believe, up there.”

Sirius was running a finger along the rim of his empty wine glass, creating a monotonous humming sound that seemed to fill the whole room. “What you’re saying is that every human who died before, say, 65, is an angel now.”

“No. No, not at all. It’s not about age, but when they were supposed to die. According to The Divine Plan.”

Sirius’s hand stopped. “Right. The Divine Plan.”

Remus sighed. “Believe me, I know. I don’t pretend to understand it. It’s one of the things I’m just supposed to believe and follow without asking questions.”

Sirius laughed. “Listening to you, it sounds like heaven is the same shit-hole as earth, if I’m honest.”

“It is, but it isn’t. Heaven is- it’s.”

He tried to think back to the first time he entered heaven, but the memory was so old and used that what was left of it was more like the bad copy of the real one. Remus tried to remember what he’d heard others tell him.

“It’s like flowers, but it’s not flowers. It’s like a garden, but there is no garden. It’s like music, but there’s no music.”

“No music,” Sirius said, silently, into his glass.

“There’s also not _no_ music,” said Remus. He sighed. “It’s impossible to describe what it is. Imagine- okay, here.”

Remus said up a little straighter, crossing his legs under him on the sofa. “Imagine a chicken inside an egg, yeah? I suppose it’s warm in there, and comfortable, and it has all it needs. But it thinks that the egg is all there is. There’s a bit of light from the outside sometimes, and muffled sounds, but that’s all there is. And then, one day, it realises it needs to get outside, so it hatches, and suddenly it can see, and it can hear, and there’s this giant world that it never would have expected to exist. That’s what dying is like, I think. Like birth. But you can’t explain to the unhatched chicken what the world is going to be like, because it wouldn’t understand.”

Sirius hadn’t looked at Remus the entire time he was talking, but he glanced at him now. “You’re calling me a foetus,” he said.

Remus smiled. “I suppose I am.”

“It must be entertaining, then,” said Sirius. His face had been unsettlingly blank throughout their conversation. “Watching us struggle through life.”

“It’s anything but,” said Remus. “It’s frustrating, mainly. Watching the lot of you treat your lives the way you do.”

Sirius raised a perfect eyebrow. “And how would that be?”

Remus stopped picking at a thread on the arm of his sweater and gestured at the empty glass still in Sirius’s hands. “Like it’s infinite, and worthless. Like it’s a liability instead of a gift.”

Sirius just looked at him for a moment. “Remus, you say you don’t remember all of your life, so I’m not sure if you forgot about this, too. But life feels like anything but a _gift_ a lot of the time to a lot of us.”

Remus opened his mouth to protest, but stopped himself when he could taste the bitterness of his words before he even said them.

He blinked. “Maybe I’m just old and sad,” he said. “I don’t know. I just wish I could-“ He stopped, and tried to figure out what the end of that sentence was. “I just feel like, for an angel, I feel too much. Most of the others don’t remember anything about their lives, and sometimes, it’s unbearable. To know what I can no longer have.”

“But you’re here now,” said Sirius, gesturing at him. “Like this. Isn’t that like living even more than one life?”

Remus almost laughed. “This is nothing,” he said, not bothering to swallow his anger anymore. “This is a poor joke in comparison to what life ought to feel like.”

Sirius frowned. “What does it feel like, then? Being on earth now?”

“It’s like-“ Remus resumed picking at his sweater, and tried to think. “You know how in theory, you never literally touch anything, because on the smallest level, there’s always this microscopically fine line of space between your molecules and those around you?”

“Well, I know now.”

“That’s what it feels like. I’m aware of every single molecule that’s not actually in contact with anything around me, of how I’m only ever an addition to what the world is supposed to look like. I’m here to intervene, not to exist.”

Sirius stared at him with an unreadable expression. He was chewing his lip again, and Remus couldn’t decide if it was a nervous habit or something he did because of how it made Remus stare at his mouth. Both felt equally possible.

“Well,” he said matter-of-factly. Then, Sirius took Remus’s hand in his, simply aligning their palms and fingers against each other’s. “So we’re not actually touching, now?”

Remus could do nothing but stare. “No,” he said.

Sirius took his other hand, aligning it like the first. “And now?”

“Nothing,” said Remus.

Sirius interlinked his fingers with Remus’s and leaned forward, slowly, so very slowly, until their foreheads were leaning against another. Remus closed his eyes, feeling utterly ridiculous with his pulse racing in his throat.

“And now?”

Remus swallowed, but didn’t trust his voice. He shook his head gently.

“And...,” said Sirius, but Remus was already meeting him halfway.

Their first kiss was nothing more than a brush of lips. Remus pulled back enough to get a glimpse of Sirius looking back at him with one of his _bloody_ self-satisfied grins, before he untangled their hands in favour of pulling him back in by his neck.

Feeling Sirius Black’s grin against his mouth was- it was…

Sirius tasted like wine, and Remus could almost remember what it was like to be intoxicated. For the fraction of a second, he understood why Sirius drank the way he did.

Sirius pulled away again, laughing at Remus’s sound of frustration as he climbed over him and straddled Remus’s thighs with his.

“This,” said Remus stupidly, his hands in Sirius’s hair, “This is nice.”

Sirius just laughed again as he dove back into the kiss.

Having a lapful of Sirius Orion Black was- it was…

Remus’s brain failed to think of a fitting comparison.

Remus carefully licked into Sirius’s mouth, causing him to make the most ungodly sound.

 _It’s like a garden, but there is no garden_ , Remus thought. _Like music, but without music._

Remus didn’t realise how absolutely fucked he was until Sirius ground his hips down, swallowing the moan it startled out of Remus.

“Fuck,” said Remus, and pushed Sirius away by his shoulders. He whined unhappily but didn’t resist.

There were four reasons why this was Bad with a capital B.

One. Either Sirius was looking for a quick shag with no strings attached, which Remus knew better than to agree to. Or Sirius wanted more from him, something that required attention and love and time. Remus could only ever offer him two of the three.

Two. Remus was, in this very moment, making a fool of himself in all of the heavenly realms.

Three. Joan would rip his head off if they found out.

Four. “You’re drunk,” said Remus, and got up. He had never been so glad for Sirius’s drinking habits, because he wasn’t sure if any of the other reasons would have been good enough to make himself put a stop to this.

Sirius got out of the way and flopped back down onto the sofa, his face comically horrified at this turn of events.

“You know,” he protested, “You _know_ I’ve wanted this since Belgium.”

“I know,” said Remus, trying to look resolute instead of awkward standing over Sirius. “And now you’re drunk.”

Sirius groaned, and let himself fall over on the sofa. Into the cushions, he said, “Angel my _ass_.”

***

**22 July, Stockholm, Sweden**

They didn’t talk about it. Remus didn’t give Sirius the opportunity. If he found it strange that their hotels got a lot better at getting the reservations right and they stopped rooming together, he didn’t say anything.

Out of all the reasons why Sirius Black was a Bad Idea, none convinced Remus enough to shut down his thoughts about What If on the long term, except one. There was no way Sirius Black was looking for anything but a shag from Remus, and there was no way he could give him that and turn around as if nothing happened without a small part of him breaking.

Sirius reminded Remus of all the things he didn’t usually allow himself to think about. Of hope, and a life and death that could be called such, of home and being able to properly feel and hear and _feel_ and of belonging. Remus looked at Sirius’s face and saw a second chance and hated himself for constantly forgetting that Sirius Black was still Sirius Black.

So Remus walked around all day with his brain going, “He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t want you,” and pretended to be fine.

He was quite good at the last part.

***

**24 July, Copenhagen, Denmark**

Sirius Orion Black had added the plastic devil's horns from their night in Berlin to his stage outfit. It looked utterly ridiculous and Remus hated the smirk on his face more than anything else.

***

**26 July, Hamburg, Germany**

"Just so you know, the internet thinks Remus is your husband," said James instead of a greeting.

Sirius almost fell off the railing he was squatting on from laughing. The outside area backstage of the concert hall was filthy, but smoking wasn’t allowed inside. "They _what_?"

"Yeah. You've been walking around outside with him alone, and there's pictures, and fans are jumping to conclusions. There's fanfiction. And people are coming up with fake names for him. Felix is a favourite, and Matthew, for whatever reason."

"Huh," said Sirius. "I mean, that's not the worst rumour that went around about me. Better being married than being a Trump supporter.”

“Or shagging Peter,” James contributed.

Sirius’s entire body shuddered at the memory of this particular tabloid headline. “Fuck, everything is better than that.”

“So, Sirius,” came Lily’s voice from the background. “What’s the deal with Remus? Did anything happen since Oslo?”

Sirius wasn’t surprised that James had told Lily about what had happened. Honestly, he'd counted on it, because Lily tended to give the best relationship advice ever.

“No,” Sirius sighed. “Not for lack of trying, though. He runs away every time I try to talk to him, like, literally. I wish I knew what he wanted, you know? Because I know he wants _something_.”

James hummed. “I guess you can’t force him to tell you, right?”

“Well, no,” said Lily. “But does he know what _you_ want?”

Sirius laughed. “I think my intentions have been made quite clear.”

“And what are those exactly?” Lily asked.

“To be frank with you, I’d like him to snog me senseless against the next wall.”

James laughed at the same time that Lily sighed, “Yes, and what then?”

“Do you want me to get explicit here?”

“You _know_ what I mean. This might be one of those rare times when you’ll have to think further than the next two minutes. I mean, I can only guess, but Remus is just some bloke doing his job. He might like you, or he might not, but what is he supposed to think you want from him? You’re a celebrity, Sirius, _and_ a musician. One with a reputation at that.”

Sirius threw his cigarette stump into the gutter and tried to light a new one with one hand. “I guess,” he said. He found it unfair that he was made out to be the one with the upper hand here when Remus was literally the one with angelic powers, but he couldn’t exactly tell that to his friends. Not over the phone, at least.

“Just tell him what you want from him,” Lily said.

“Yeah,” James agreed. “Put your cards on the table. And then he can take it or leave it, but at least it’s all out in the open.”

Sirius groaned. “I know you’re right,” he said, “But I hate it.”

“You’re welcome,” said Lily. “I’m going to pee. Bye, Sirius. Good luck.”

“Thanks, Lily,” he said.

James waited a few seconds, and then said, “She’s been peeing, like, every five minutes lately. That’s normal, right? God, I can’t wait until this is finally over and the baby is here.”

Sirius laughed. “Two more weeks, right?”

“Probably,” said James. “I keep telling Lily to wait until you’re back.”

“How precious of you,” said Sirius. “I think I still haven’t registered that there’s a whole new human coming out of her soon.”

“It’s so weird when you say it like that,” he said. And then, “Hey, Sirius. You’re okay, right? Apart from the whole Remus thing? You’re doing alright?”

Sirius laughed. “Of course, mate. I’m grand. It’s not nearly as much fun without you guys, of course. But now I have this entire summer fling thing going on with Remus, so I’m occupied and all. Don’t worry about me.”

“Okay,” said James. “Okay. Just know that you can talk to us whenever, even with the baby and everything happening. We miss you a lot.”

“I miss you too,” said Sirius. “Two more weeks.”

***

**30 July, Cologne, Germany**

Sirius was bored out of his bloody mind. Not only was Remus still avoiding any situation where the two could possibly end up alone, but he also hadn’t had anything to do for four days by now. Sirius had been grateful for the break before the next concert on the 31st for about one second until he’d realised that there was nothing to _do_ with it.

He’d even started doing all the touristy stuff, but there was only so much interest he could feign in old churches that he’d already seen. He’d almost gotten somebody to ship his bike over to him, but apparently that was something “he had to think of earlier” and was “impossible to do on such short notice”.

He was _bored_. Bored enough that, lying on his hotel bed, he decided to actually listen to Lily’s advice.

Remus’s room was just across the hall, and Sirius was well aware that he hadn’t been doing anything all day but stay there and wait for Sirius to fuck up in any way.

There was silence for a few moments after Sirius knocked. Then, “It’s open.”

The hotel room was an exact mirror image of Sirius’s, or of any other hotel room he’d ever been in, for that matter. But Remus’s was flooded with the afternoon sun, turning his bed into an oasis of coziness with Remus and his giant stupid sweater in the centre of it, book in hand.

His tone was nonchalant, but his eyes were big as he looked up at Sirius, who closed the door behind himself.

“Do you need anything?”

Sirius sighed. He walked to the bed until he hit the frame with his legs and just let his body fall face-first into the thick duvet.

He turned his head towards Remus whose mouth had quirked up on one side. He was still holding his book in his lap.

“Why do you read so much?” Sirius asked.

“Um,” said Remus. “Because I enjoy it?”

“I mean,” said Sirius, “Shouldn’t it be boring as hell, considering all the stuff you’ve seen?”

Remus frowned, and put his book aside. Sirius counted that as a win. “Maybe? I don’t know. It’s just one of those things I think I used to love and I can’t really do when I’m not down here.”

“Are you seriously telling me that there aren’t any books in heaven? God, Lily will _hate_ that.”

“It’s more like, the concept of sight and material things doesn’t exist in heaven,” he said.

“Oh,” said Sirius. “Well, that’s fair then.”

He sat up opposite of Remus, crossing his legs under him.

“I want to talk to you.” And before Remus could get a word in, “And I need you to not run away again.”

Remus hesitated for a moment before nodding. He looked like he was resigning himself to his fate, which didn’t do anything for Sirius’s hope.

Put your cards on the table. At least try.

“So, listen.” He swallowed. “Ah. Probably should have thought about what I was going to say before coming here. I guess this is the kind of thing that makes Lily say I never think more than two minutes ahead. But I’ve been trying, you know. To do that. Think ahead about what exactly I want. From you.”

Remus moved, and for a moment, Sirius fully expected him to leave the room and bold. In the end, he just stood, and looked out of the window. Remus’s fingers were buried deeply into the fabric of his sleeves.

It made it easier, somehow. Not being able to see his expression.

“I don’t know how long you’ll still be around, obviously. And I would be seriously worried about abusing my position of power as your kinda-boss if it wasn’t for the entire angel business. But I just, I know that I like you a whole lot, and that it fucking bothers me when you don’t seem to want to even look at me, and that I don’t want to sleep in the room next to you all the time, and that I really, really would love for you to shag me.”

Sirius could hear Remus snort at that, at least. He hoped that was a good sign. He added, “You should probably know that Lily told me to put myself out there, and that I’m very bad at doing that and tend to overshare and make other people uncomfortable in the process. So, sorry. But I mean it.”

When Remus still kept silent, Sirius got up from the bed and leant against the window next to Remus. He kept his eyes on the streets under them, and Sirius just waited.

Finally, Remus said silently, “What you’re asking of me is impossible.”

“Is it the sex thing?”, he asked. “Because I’m flexible. We don’t have to-”

“No,” said Remus. “It’s everything.”

“What is? I’m literally begging you to use your words, Remus.”

“It’s,” Remus said, and sighed. He sat back down on the bed behind him, both feet on the ground, his eyes still looking out of the window instead of at Sirius. “I don’t think you understand that I’m literally going to vanish one day. Tomorrow, or in a few months. I’m going to be pulled back up and it’ll be strange for you, sure, but for me, it’s-”

He rubbed a hand across his face, and for a moment, Remus looked old beyond his years. Or appropriately old for his true age, whatever that was. “A full life is everything I ever wanted to have. You can’t ask me to pretend like that’s what I’m going to get when that will just make it so much more painful when it’s gone again.”

“I’m not asking you to pretend anything,” Sirius tried. “I’m just saying that we’re going to be spending time together anyway, and that I would much rather be doing it _together_ together.”

Finally, Remus looked at him. “Then maybe that would mean something different to the two of us,” he said. “I don’t have anything, Sirius. You can’t just give me something and expect me not to care when it’s taken away again.”

“You’re not listening to me,” said Sirius, growing irritated. “I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter that you won’t stay. I’m saying that nevertheless, I would rather-”

“No,” Remus cut him off. “Just accept that I’m telling you _no_.”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“Okay,” said Sirius, finally. “Okay, if that’s what you bloody want.”

And he left. He locked his door behind himself and ripped the door to his minibar open.

It was empty. Joan was such a little _shit_.

***

**01 August, Utrecht, Netherlands**

They were on their way from Cologne to Utrecht when James called. Sirius and Remus were sharing the back while Joan sat in the front seat in a strange mirror image of the first time they had met. It was so early that it wasn’t even light outside yet, and the ringtone startled Sirius awake.

Before he could say as much as hello, James was shouting into the line, “IT’S HAPPENING! Sirius, I’m freaking out. It’s happening. IT’S HAPPENING. WHAT AM I DOING?”

Sirius blinked a few times before his brain caught up with what James was talking about. “Already?! Oh my God, isn’t it too early? Is Lily okay?”

“What? I think so, I think it’s-”

“It’s fine!” Lily shouted from a way off. “It’s just two weeks, it doesn’t matter. If you would just take the bag and get _on with it_.”

“James,” said Sirius, “Are you still at home? What are you doing calling me before taking her to the hospital?”

“I don’t know, mate, I don’t know, I just thought-”

“Say goodbye to Sirius already,” Lily told him. “You can call him from the hospital, alright? Come on.”

“Talk to you later, Pads,” said James, and hung up.

Sirius stared at his phone for a second before looking up. Both Remus and Joan were staring at him with wide eyes.

“The baby?”, Joan asked, actually sounding excited.

“That little arsehole. It was supposed to wait for me.” He leaned forward to the driver. “Where are we right now?”

“Uh,” she said. “We just passed the border. There are no bigger cities around here, I don’t thi-”

“We’re not turning back,” Joan said. They were tapping into their phone almost aggressively.

“I nee-”

“I’m booking you a flight from Amsterdam,” they said. “Lupin, can you drive?”

Sirius looked over at Remus, who seemed a little overwhelmed with the situation. “Um, sure,” he said.

“Good, because I can’t, and I have places to be tonight. You’re getting Sirius from the airport later, because he’s going to be home in time for the concert, you hear me? But Sirius, you’ll have a few hours in London.”

“Oh my God,” said Sirius, “I literally love you so much. Marry me?”

“Think I’ll pass,” said Joan, but they were smiling at their phone.

Sirius leaned back, and tried not to vibrate out of his seat with anxious energy.

***

Joan managed to book a flight at 8, which gave Sirius almost the whole day in London before he had to fly back at 5.

Around midday, he sent Remus a picture. It showed Sirius sitting in bed with a beaming Lily, a tiny bundle with a big mop of black hair awkwardly cradled in his arm, making them both look like proud parents. The message read,

_meet harry james potter, born this morning at 8.43. he looks so much like a mix of lily and james it’s scary. also i’m never holding him again bc i just know i would drop him and if anything ever happened to him i would kill everyone in this room and then myself_

Remus waited at the airport’s car pick-up line that evening, leaning against his borrowed SUV. He hadn’t been entirely truthful about being able to drive that morning with Joan, but then again, learning new things was part of his nature. He’d watched a youtube tutorial and hoped for the best. It wasn’t Remus’s best work yet; he’d hit a bunch of curbs and it had taken him almost the entire way to get into a kind of meditative driving state, but he was probably just tired from not really sleeping at all the night before.

Remus spotted Sirius the second he walked through the airport doors, which was probably not a commendation to his undercover outfit of black sweater and sunglasses, not that that was any news.

Remus watched as Sirius stopped, looked around, spotted Remus, and made his way through the crowd. Remus completely missed the moment between Sirius simply walking towards him, and stepping into his space, and then he was just holding him, breathing in lungfuls of Sirius for a few moments.

“Sorry,” Sirius said, but he didn’t let go for another few seconds. He slid his sunglasses up into his hair. “Just an emotional day.”

“It’s okay,” said Remus. Maybe it was. “Let’s go.”

In the passenger seat, Sirius leaned back, closed his eyes, and breathed. Remus tried to watch the street instead of him as he pulled out of the parking spot. He wondered if as his guardian angel, he was supposed to tell Sirius to put his seatbelt on, but found he had little ground to go on when he wasn’t wearing his, either.

“Is Lily alright?”, Remus asked. “And James?”

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “Yeah, they’re doing great. They’re really happy.” He turned to Remus. “I’m his godfather.”

“Didn’t they tell you about that before today?”

“Well, kind of,” said Sirius. “They tried to make me believe it was going to be Lily’s brother-in-law. Vernon.”

“How nice of them,” said Remus, pulling into the freeway.

“Oh, I knew that it was a joke. Vernon is the director of a firm that sells drills. I’m not kidding. He hates us all.”

“Charming,” said Remus.

They made their way past green fields and fields and fields and fields in silence. Remus wondered how a country that was so tiny could have so little _things_ in it. Soon after, though, they passed tiny bridges and a few houses with huge windows and even the street signs were somehow adorable. Remus loved everything about this place.

He assumed that Sirius had fallen asleep as always in the car, so he almsot startled when he turned and caught a glimpse of Sirius, eyes wide open, crying softly in the passenger seat.

Sirius must have noticed Remus looking, because he said very silently, “He’s so _tiny_.”

“What?” Remus asked. “Harry?”

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “How in all heavens is he going to survive, you know? Babies shouldn’t be so fragile. You look at them wrong and boom, they’re dead.”

Remus didn’t know if he should laugh or be concerned. “But that’s why he has James and Lily, right?”

“Sure,” he said. “And I know they’re going to be amazing parents. I’m just.” He breathed in deeply. “I’m so terrified for him, you know? He’s so bloody small, and now there’s Lily and James to look out for him, and me, but what’s going to happen in the moments when they’re not there? What if something happens to us? What if the whole fame thing hurts him, somehow? What if he grows up to hate his life? Or us?”

He rubbed a hand across his face. “This world sucks so _much_. And James and Lily just go and reproduce like it’s not absolutely obvious that humanity has a few decades left to go, tops. How can you create new life in this hell hole? How _could_ they?”

Sirius just stared out of the window for a few seconds, before he said, “I guess I’m pretty mad at them.”

Remus was at a loss of words. He felt like something about Sirius was clicking into place so that he was fully making sense for the first time; why he treated life like he didn't care if or when it ended. Remus had been furious at Sirius before, for living the way he did while he was surrounded by people who loved him unconditionally, but if Sirius truly believed the world didn't have much longer to go-

And was he wrong about that?

For a few minutes, they drove in silence. They had finally reached a stretch of towns with one house after the other that were all so beautiful and cute that Remus had to make an effort not to imagine a life in them.

Finally, Remus started talking. “I wish I could tell you anything about the future, but your guess is honestly as good as mine,” he said. “But what I do know is the past, and people have never stopped having children during bad times. They tend to have them more, actually. And I can also promise you that no matter what happens to Harry, he has what seem to be the most caring parents, and a very well taken care of godfather, if I may say so myself.”

He won’t have your childhood, Remus wanted to say, but he didn’t know if that went to far. And even if he did, look at you. You turned out well enough.

Sirius smiled, but he didn’t say anything.

When Remus glanced over a few kilometres later, he had fallen asleep against the passenger window.

They reached the concert hall half an hour before Sirius was supposed to go on stage to Joan being close to a nervous breakdown. Sirius wiped his face, said, “Thank you, Remus,” put on his sunglasses, and got out of the car.

Remus watched the show again that night after avoiding it the last few times. He watched as Sirius started the concert as if nothing had happened, up to his usual quality standard. Almost halfway through their songs, he stopped, and started talking about Harry. Somehow, he had managed to get somebody from the film team to project pictures onto one of the huge screens, and Sirius told everyone about him, beaming like a proud father.

Remus was sure he had never seen anything similarly precious. Also, it was a good way to make up to Joan, who was over how videos from that night blew up all across social media.

***

**02 August, Dublin, Ireland**

There hadn’t been much time to tell James and Lily about what had happened with Remus between making cooing sounds and being emotionally overwhelmed all day. Right as he was leaving, though, James had remembered to ask about him.

Sirius had let go of the door handle. “Honestly, I’m not sure what’s happening,” he'd said. “I talked to him. Did the cards thing.”

“And?” Lily had asked from her hospital bed, clearly pleased that someone had listened to her for once.

“He said he doesn’t want anything to do with me. Apart from work things, I mean.”

“What?!” James had said silently as not to wake up Harry in the tiny bed next to him. “Are you kidding?”

“Yes, well, the thing is that I don’t believe him. His reasons are all screwed up, like he’s trying not to get hurt by not letting anything good happen, you know? I don’t really understand him.”

“Well,” Lily had, “That’s stupid. But if he says that, that’s his choice, right? You tried, and he said no, so there he goes.”

“Now that’s a little harsh,” James had started saying.

Lily had given him a look that’d clearly said _I just gave birth, don’t tell me what is or isn’t harsh_. To Sirius she’d said, “I’m just trying to say that you should take care. Don’t let him string you along now. You’re not there for him whenever he wants, yeah? It was his decision. Don’t let yourself get hurt is what I’m saying.”

Sirius had nodded. “Thanks, Lily.”

“Sure. Hey.” She’d straightened up a little. “Are you doing okay? In general, I mean?”

Again, he’d nodded, and given her a small smile. “I’m great. Thanks again.”

“We’ll see you in two weeks, okay?”, James had said.

“Okay,” Sirius had said, and left.

Well, at least he’d listened to her once, Sirius thought. And who could blame him, really? He’d been bone tired from 48 hours with nothing but naps in airplanes and cars, and all of his emotions had been drained out of him, and actually it was the stupid hotel’s fault for fucking up their reservations again.

No. Actually, it was Remus’s fault. He didn’t _have_ to stare at Sirius like that, and he didn’t _have_ to look like the human equivalent of a nest of blankets, and he didn’t _have_ to stand in Sirius’s way and he _certainly_ didn’t have to push Sirius against the wall ever so gently and brush their lips together as if this was the most comfortable he’d ever been in his life.

Really, Sirius was a victim in this situation.

***

Really, Remus was a victim in this situation.

At first the hotel had screwed up, _actually_ screwed up without any of his meddling. He must have been really exhausted because when he’d suggested to the guy that he should maybe check again, which would have been enough for him to do whatever Remus wanted, he simply apologised again and showed them to their one double room.

Also, why did Sirius Black look so goddamn stunning, even with bloodshot eyes and in his ill-fitting sleep shirt?

Sirius Black, who cried because he was afraid for the sake of his godson’s future. Sirius Black, who couldn’t dress down to save his life. Sirius Black, who hadn’t been drinking nearly as much as he used to, lately. Sirius Black, who apologised for hugging him. Sirius Black, who always laughed too loudly. Sirius Black, who _wanted Remus_.

What was he to do but take him by his waist and kiss him? They only had one bed, anyway. It only made sense, economically, to fall asleep all entangled.

***

Apparently, Remus had now become the kind of person to watch other people in their sleep. To his defence, in this case that person was Sirius Black, and watching him was technically his job.

They were so entangled that Remus wasn’t sure where he stopped and Sirius began. He tried to watch Sirius simply lie on his chest and breathe for as long as he could stand before he had to reach up with one hand and stroke the hairs out of his face.

It still took a while before Sirius woke up with a yawn. He opened his eyes, and adjusted his head to be able to properly look at Remus. Sirius blinked himself awake for a while before he said,

“You’re still here.”

Remus couldn’t help it. “Well, this is my bed too, you know.”

Sirius only barely rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I figured,” Remus said truthfully, “Fuck it, I want this. And now I’m here.” He smiled. “Hi.”

Sirius smiled back, and for a while, they were just two idiots grinning at each other. Then, Sirius got up enough to straddle Remus’s waste, hovering over him so that his hair tickled Remus’s face.

“Well then,” he said, and bent down to meet his lips.

Remus had never been a big fan of church, was the thing. He'd never found those old buildings to be the right place for worship. Not for himself, personally, anyway.

Sirius’s kiss was so gentle, so unlike anything his personality ever suggested, that Remus was almost irritated by it. It was nothing but barely-there touches of lips and tongue that pulled back every time Remus tried to deepen the kiss; more like just breathing each other in than an actual kiss that Remus could feel himself get dizzy with the act. Sirius was kissing him like there wasn’t a single place he would rather be. Remus sighed, just letting him take the air right out of his lungs, until finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore.

He took Sirius with one hand by the back of his neck and pushed himself upright, finally, finally bringing their mouths together into a firm, deep kiss. Sirius hands held on to Remus’s shoulders as he dipped him more and more back until he fall back onto the covers, laughing, hair sprawled out underneath him. They’d both lost their shirts at some point last night when it had gotten too warm cuddled up together, and Remus didn’t think he’d ever appreciated skin contact this much.

Sirius was looking up at him with an expression that made Remus’s blood run hot and cold at the same time, and he avoided it by bending down and licking a line across Sirius’s collar bone, up his throat, and down again. Sirius’s hands found their way into his hair, just holding on, not guiding. He moaned silently as Remus’s tongue found a sensitive spot on his neck, and Remus smiled against it. He grazed the skin there lightly with his teeth, biting down ever so gently and pulling on the sensitive skin a tiny bit before letting go and flattening his tongue over the spot. Sirius rewarded him by tightening the grip in his hair and bending his head back, offering his neck to Remus, who went back to kissing his mouth.

Remus didn’t notice himself that he had started rocking down until he swallowed one of Sirius’s gasps from hitting an especially good spot.

“Fuck,” Sirius said. “Touch me. _Please_.”

Remus was fully aware that he couldn’t have said no if he wanted to, but still, he smiled down at Sirius. “Yeah?” he asked, and stroked Sirius through his pants, just once. “Like this?”

Sirius keened as he let go again, and fuck, Remus had _known_ that Sirius would be responsive.

“Remus,” he whined. “Stop playing around.”

Remus watched Sirius’s face as he let his hand trail along his stomach, dip under his waistband, and pull out again. Sirius was looking right back at him, his mouth half open, tiny gasps falling from him whenever Remus hit a ticklish spot.

“God,” said Sirius, “Come _on_.”

Finally, Remus couldn’t stand it anymore himself and pulled down Sirius’s boxer briefs for better access, before taking him in hand, giving him one long, testing stroke.

Sirius nearly sighed in relief, not breaking eye contact. Remus almost wanted to bury his own face in the other’s neck again, or at least go back to kissing, but he forced himself to keep looking. His entire body was slowly burning up with the sensation.

Slowly, Remus worked up a rhythm, alternating between letting his thumb glide over the head and stroking the entire length. He couldn’t resist going back to kissing him from time to time, but always found himself going back to watching Sirius's expression.

Sirius was just so beautiful, his hair becoming increasingly messy beneath him, totally uninhibited and as expressive as ever, just for him, for nobody but Remus. For a moment he was sure he could come just from this, from watching Sirius Black fall apart beneath him.

“Please,” said Sirius. “Fuck. I’m going to-”

Remus thought about stopping right then, right there. He thought about hearing Sirius whine and beg and making him wait, just to start over again. But that was for another time.

“I’ve got you,” said Remus. “Come on. I’ve got you.”

Remus twisted his hand just so, and just like that, Sirius was coming. He finally closed his eyes, a drawn-out moan coming from him that reminded Remus of his stage-moans but was _so much better_.

He kept stroking him through it, watching as Sirius made a mess of both of them.

Remus had barely let go of him and Sirius had still not fully caught his breath when he pulled Remus into a kiss that was at least as much teeth as it was tongue and lips. “You’re-,” he said, and then, “Let me, please-”

Remus let himself be pushed back towards the bed’s headboard and settled down against it as Sirius never let them break their kiss. Remus didn’t realise what his plan was until Sirius started kissing his way down his torso, quickly reaching his pyjama pants, where he-

“Oh,” he said when he realised. “ _Oh_. Okay.”

Sirius smiled as Remus let him free his pants from where they had gotten caught around his feet. Then he reached up, and guided Remus’s cock to his lips, and licked a strip from base to top.

“Okay okay okay _okay-_ ”

Sirius kept licking in long stripes, and Remus could already tell that this wasn’t going to last as long as he would have liked it to. He kept instinctively trying to close his legs until finally, Sirius just gripped his knees and held them open for him.

He took just the tip into his mouth, let his tongue glide along it and _sucked_ , and Remus nearly let go a prayer right then, right there.

Church just didn’t compare.

His hands automatically gripped Sirius’s hair and he used the opportunity to stroke it out of his face, gathering it with one hand at the top of Sirius’s head like the sorriest excuse of a messy bun. He looked up at Remus, eyes grateful, and without warning, he swallowed him down almost completely to the base.

“Jesus Christ,” said Remus, and Sirius came up again, laughing.

“Oh, shut up,” said Remus.

“I wasn’t saying anything,” said Sirius, and went down again.

About 90% of Remus was convinced that he was either in a fever dream, although he wasn’t sure if it was even possible for him to get sick, or hallucinating, which, same problem. Another 9% were reserved for expecting that he would get pulled back up to heaven any moment now, because there was no way this was something he was _allowed_.

But he stayed. He stayed, and Sirius kept picking up his pace, every movement of his tongue designed to make Remus come his brains out. And finally, he did. “ _Fuck_.” He surprised himself with the intensity of it.

Remus might have blacked out for a bit, because when his brain started kicking in again, Sirius was already giving him one last lick before coming back up, a self-satisfied smile on his face. Remus let go of his hair, and let himself be kissed deeply. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to have anything even remotely as erotic happen to him.

“You made a very good decision,” said Sirius when he finally pulled away again, smiling. “If I do say so myself.”

***

**03 August, Belfast, N. Ireland**

Sirius threw the bathroom door open just as Remus was rinsing his mouth from toothpaste. He waved his phone in front of Remus's face, hectic enough that he couldn't actually read anything.

"Third of August!" Sirius was saying. "That's today!"

"Hold on," said Remus, wiping his mouth with one hand and taking the phone from Sirius with the other. Pulled up was the facebook page of Belfast Pride, stating that the Pride Parade was happening today.

"It's barely started! If we leave, like, right now, we can still make it!"

Sirius wasn't wearing a shirt, and right then, Remus could think of a few different ways they could have spent the time before the concert.

He gave Sirius his phone back and leaned against the bathroom counter. "Is that something we can do? I mean, aren't people going to recognise you and take pictures? Of us together, I mean?"

Sirius shrugged with his whole body as if that wasn't something that would make Joan go through with their retirement plans immediately. The two of them were trying to keep their _thing_ \- whatever it was, exactly - from Joan, but Remus suspected that they assumed they had been banging from the first minute, anyway.

“Eh, I doubt it.”

Remus hummed, and pulled Sirius in by his waist. He didn’t complain, simply leaned down and kissed him back. Remus thought he’d succeeded with his distraction technique when Sirius’s hands had found their way under his shirt and began to gently stroke his sides, but just then, Sirius seemed to shake himself out of a haze and he pulled back.

“We’re going to be late,” he said, and left the room.

Remus just groaned and tried to tell himself that Joan wasn’t going to kill them both on sight that night.

Sirius Black pulled him through the streets by his hand. Either the parade was starting late, or they still hadn’t found it, but neither of them cared too much. The city was _packed,_ the streets lined with teenagers with colourful hair and drag queens and half-naked people and the rare family and Remus was overwhelmed in every way.

It was _loud_. So many people surrounded them at all times that it was impossible to tell who was recognising Sirius and who wasn’t, but it was safe to say that most of them were. Even for his usual standards, Sirius had done no effort of disguising himself in the scorching weather in a tank top and with his hair open. They had been walking around the city for not half an hour and he’d been pulled aside to take pictures and sign body parts at every corner - and still, after every encounter, he took Remus’s hand, and grinned at him, and kept walking.

Being Sirius Black seemed so easy at times that Remus would have melted from jealousy if he hadn’t known the truth.

They passed a stand selling pride flags and face paints, and Sirius turned and looked at Remus so excitedly that he couldn’t possibly have said no. Maybe, Remus thought, people would stop recognising Sirius with his hair in a headwrap made out of a pan-pride flag. Remus let him paint a simple rainbow flag on his cheek, but refused anything else.

People didn’t stop asking for pictures. Sirius didn’t stop taking his hand.

They got distracted from their search for the actual parade as Remus caught a glimpse of a stage set up on the city square that people were holding speeches on and guided Sirius in that direction.

They chose a place at the edge of the crowd and listened to speaker after speaker - LGBT+ group leaders, local celebrities, anyone who had something to say - celebrate Pride by talking about what used to be, what was happening now, and what could be in the future.

They were just cheering for a girl that couldn’t have been older than 15 when someone next to them cleared their throat, and said, “Excuse me?”

They both turned, expecting another fan asking for a picture. A woman with a mohawk and headset as well as an important-looking pass hanging around her neck was smiling at them. She had an incredible number of enamel pins and badges with slogans like “I WASN’T RECRUITED, I ENLISTED” and “SHE/HER” pinned to her shirt.

“My name is Dana, I’m organising this event here. Somebody told me you were in the crowd, and you are very welcome to tell me to fuck off and I will do so very gladly, but if you wanted to get up on that stage too and say a few words, about anything at all, I’m sure everybody would love that.”

“Oh,” said Sirius. He turned and looked at Remus, who just shrugged. If he wanted to, why not? “I’m not sure I have anything important to say, if I’m honest.”

Again, Dana smiled. “If that’s the only problem, you’ll be just fine. Anything you could think of would be important to someone, I’m sure.”

Sirius looked at Remus again, who said, “Go on, I’ll wait here,” and gave Sirius’s hand one last squeeze before letting go.

He watched as Sirius trailed behind Dana along the edge of the crowd to the steps leading up onto stage from the side. A wave of murmurs swept across the crowd as people recognised who had just joined the row of speakers.

When the girl who had been speaking on the importance of ensuring the safety of trans youth inside the school system had stepped away from the microphone, Dana was already pushing Sirius onto the stage. He looked uncharacteristically insecure as the cheering finally ebbed down, and stared at the microphone that was adjusted way too low for him on the stand.

“Um,” Sirius said into the mic, bending down to pull it up to his height. “Uhh. Hello there. You all look very wonderful from up here.”

Remus cheered with the rest. He felt kind of giddy, a bit like a teenager watching their celebrity crush.

“There have been a lot of amazing speakers up here already before me, who were really well prepared and who actually knew what they were doing, and had a lot of amazing points, so all that’s left for me to do up here is spread a bit of love, maybe? Because the thing about being part of this beautiful, beautiful community is that there’s never a lack of love in our lives, because we get to choose who we want to be loved by. If you know anything at all about me, you know I don’t talk about my childhood a lot, but being able to choose my family is literally what saved my life back then. So I was wondering if you people wanted to sing something with me, maybe? Yeah? Okay. I hope you know the lyrics.”

Without any instrumental accompaniment, with both hands wrapped around the microphone, Sirius started singing.

_“Wise men say_

_Only fools rush in,_

_But I can’t help_

_Falling in love with you.”_

Most of the crowd fell in and sang along immediately. It was so god-awfully cheesy that Remus almost felt guilty at how much he enjoyed every second.

_“Shall I stay?_

_Would it be a sin_

_If I can’t help_

_Falling in love with you?”_

Watching Sirius on stage from a little way off was an almost disorienting experience because Remus could imagine so, so well to be just some guy standing in the crowd falling in love with that beautiful man with that beautiful voice. For a second, Remus wondered if he’d hallucinated his entire existence and this was his actual human life.

_“Like a river flows surely to the sea_

_Darling so it goes_

_Some things are meant to be_

_Take my hand, take my whole life too_

_For I can’t help falling in love with you.”_

And he wondered if he would have traded a second chance at a normal life in oder to spend even part of his fucked-up angelic existence with Sirius Black.

“Thank you for that,” said Sirius over the noise. “And in case any of you are wondering: No, it’s never a sin. I know that from a very reliable source.”

Sirius stepped away from the microphone and made to walk off stage, grinned, and turned back to say, “That source happens to be my boyfriend. I just wanted to say that. Have a great day.”

Remus hadn’t known that he could still cry. He’d taken it for nothing but a humane luxury, but apparently, he’d been wrong. For a long moment, he couldn’t even figure out why exactly he was tearing up, and just blinked for a while.

 _Boyfriend_.

This was so stupid. This was so, so stupid. Remus wasn’t 14, he wasn’t even twenty-something, although his body would make one believe that. He was a semi-ancient divine creature with no corporeal form, he had witnessed death and life beyond and the existence outside the realm of physical boundaries.

And here he was tearing up at Sirius Black calling him his boyfriend. Because the truth was that never, not in his wildest dreams, was that something that Remus had believed he would be allowed to be, or to have. But there he was.

When Remus felt somewhat in control of his emotions again, he looked up and searched the crowd for any sign of Sirius. A new speaker was standing at the microphone already who Remus had completely missed getting on stage.

His phone rang with Sirius’s texting tone.

 

**From Sirius:**

_meet you behind the stage ok?_

 

Remus expected to have to talk himself into a kind of backstage area, but Sirius literally just meant “behind the stage.” Remus assumed Dana had led him there for the lack of people, and Sirius was just saying goodbye to her as Remus found them next to a row of trash bins.

Sirius waved Dana goodbye, turned, and pulled Remus into a deep kiss.

“How romantic,” Remus said when they finally parted, but he couldn’t stop staring at what Sirius Black’s lips looked like post-kiss.

“I tried my best.” Sirius’s smile faltered. “Listen, I’m sorry if you didn’t want me to say-”

“God,” said Remus, “Fuck no. I almost just walked onto that stage and climbed you like a tree right then and there. Please never stop calling me your boyfriend.”

Sirius laughed his gorgeous, head-thrown-back, too-loud laughter. “That I can do. If I’d known this was what would do it for you-”

Both of their phones chimed at the same time, and they pulled back just enough to look.

 

**From Joan:**

_If he would just warn me before pulling a stunt like that, that’s literally all I’m asking. Just saying._

 

**From Joan:**

_Also congrats._

 

**From Joan:**

_Also get your butts back here, concert is in three hours._

 

“Joan?” Remus asked. Sirius was grinning down at his phone.

“Nope,” said Sirius. “I think they’ve given up scolding me at this point.” He turned his screen for Remus to see.

 

**From James:**

_Mate. Hell yeah_

 

**From James:**

_Call me asap ok_

 

**From James:**

_Ok Lily says you have to tell us these things before you tell like. Everyone_

 

**From James:**

_But i’m too tired to be mad so eh_

 

“I think I like them,” said Remus, grinning stupidly.

“Oh, you’re going to get along perfectly,” said Sirius, as if there wasn’t any question about if Remus was even going to be around for long enough to spend much time with them. “Come on, I still want to see the actual parade before we need to get back.”

***

**05 August, Birmingham, UK**

Remus had never hated his or Sirius’s jobs before. Now, though, that they were forced to spend two whole days before the Birmingham show - two days they could have spent holed up in Sirius’s London apartment instead - driving from interview to interview all across the UK, he was starting to.

Sirius didn’t seem to mind, because at least now that he was back on the island, he was finally allowed to use his motorcycle to get from place to place. Remus didn’t know anything about motorcycles, but just from looking at the thing he was sure that there must have been some kind of bribe money involved in getting it permitted to drive in normal traffic. Not that it looked badly cared for, just rather a little too self-made.

“Come _onnn_ ,” Sirius had tried, “It’s so much fun, you’ll see! Would you really rather spend two days being driven around in that stupid car? It’s not even like you could actually die, you know.”

“I’ll have you know,” Remus had said, finger raised, “That just because my death wouldn’t have any bigger consequences doesn’t mean I would be _glad_ to die horribly in a car crash.”

It was almost 10pm by the time their last appointment, with BBC Radio 1, landed them on the streets of Central London at sunset.

“So,” said Joan, “You’re from London, right? I’m heading to the hotel, but we could take you somewhere if you wanted to sleep at your own place.”

Remus was so used to the weird rhythm of car-appointment-car-appointment-car-appointment-car that it took him a while to remember that, yes, he supposed he had given them a London address with his application.

He hesitated long enough that Sirius, standing beside them, helmet under his arm, cut in, “I think your place is on my way. I could drop you off.”

Remus frowned for a second, wondering if Sirius really didn’t understand that Remus obviously didn’t have a flat rented in London. His smile was just innocent enough, though, that Remus realised he was trying to get him a) on his motorcycle, and b) inside his own apartment.

“Well,” said Remus, resigning himself to his fate he would have to bear a) if he wanted to end up at b). “Sure, why not.”

Joan just raised an eyebrow. “Sound check in Birmingham starts at 3,” they said. “Don’t be late.”

Obviously, Sirius didn’t carry a spare helmet. He tried to get Remus to wear his, which almost made him laugh, considering who was the one that couldn’t technically die, and who was supposed to protect whom.

Remus had probably never hated Sirius Black as much as he did right then, on the back of his bike, forced to cling to his back as Sirius did everything to impress Remus, or possibly just frighten him, by stepping on the gas and taking each corner as fast possible.

Sirius Black’s house wasn’t even a twenty minute drive through the empty streets away from Central London. Remus, getting off the bike on wobbly legs, felt like it must have been at least an hour.

The apartment building seemed so utterly mediocre from the outside that Remus expected a ridiculously eccentric loft or something similar on the inside. What he got, though, was a ridiculously mediocre apartment. Well, he supposed it was still an apartment in London and expensive enough as it was, but still, it was just that. An apartment.

“Pardon the mess,” said Sirius, putting his helmet on a dresser near the door and kicking his bag behind it, “I wasn’t expecting to bring my summer fling back home with me after the tour.”

“I hate you,” said Remus, but he was busy trying to take everything in. From the small hallway lead a bedroom, small bath, guest room as well as kitchen slash living room. From what he could see with most lights turned out, nearly every surface was covered in every possible music-related thing you could think of. A row of guitars lay on the bed or were propped up against the frame, stacks of vinyl and CDs were cluttering the sofa and kitchen table, the guest bed was used to keep two electric keyboards on, sheet music was plastered everywhere in a way that suggested somebody had opened a window beside a huge stack of it on a windy day.

The apartment looked like Sirius Black had walked in and exploded all over the place.

“And you dare call me a hoarder with my books,” Remus laughed, but truthfully, he was delighted.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Sirius, and walked into the kitchen to start the kettle. Remus followed him and started leafing through the music hoarded on the sofa.

“Let me show you something,” said Sirius after having watched for a minute. He had the kind of smile on his face that made Remus feel fluttery inside because he'd only ever seen him use it in private. He pushed a nest of blankets from his ancient-looking armchair and handed the headphones he found underneath to Remus.

“Sit,” he said, sitting on the chair’s armrest and patting the newly freed cushion beside him.

Remus did so, and put the giant headphones on as Sirius seemed to search through the music library on his phone. Finally, he found what he’d searched for.

“Listen to this,” he said. “It’s just- wow. I was floored the first time I heard it.”

Remus closed his eyes and leaned back as the first accords of the song played. A woman began to sing,

 

_She kissed me while the moon was sinking down_

_In that holy hour, I felt an angel’s lips against my mouth_

_She kissed me while my fear of God was alive_

_And I cried the rosary behind closed eyes_

 

An organ and violins set in as she reached the chorus, singing with what had to be her entire soul and more,

 

_I bet God’s a woman_

_And she fucks a woman_

_Just as divine_

_And I bet God’s a dyke_

_And she made rainbows_

_To give us a sign_

 

When the song ended, Remus kept his eyes closed a while longer. He knew that if he were to open them, the tears that had gathered in his eyelashes would fall, and he wasn’t ready to start existing outside of the song just yet.

He just just breathed for another minute before looking up at Sirius.

“That,” he said, and cleared his throat. “That is heartbreaking. And beautiful.”

Sirius was still watching him, smiling, and Remus wondered what he had read on his face while he’d listened to the song.

“Powerful, isn’t it?” said Sirius.

Remus took the headphones off and put them on the coffee table next to him. He felt so raw and vulnerable all of a sudden that he had to close his eyes for another moment.

He got it now. Why music was, to a lot of people, what church was intended to be. Why music was Sirius’s religion.

He opened his eyes, and pulled Sirius down to him. He laughed but complied and straddled Remus in the stupid armchair.

Remus kissed Sirius, kissed him deeply, because he needed him to understand. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was that he needed him to know, but it was so Goddamn important it seemed to burn through his fingertips. So Remus tried to put everything that he was, had ever been, and would ever be into the kiss, hoping that Sirius would find what he needed.

And he kissed him back like he understood, like he already knew.

***

**07 August, Nottingham, UK**

“Take your hood off,” Remus whispered.

Sirius had to smile, but did it anyway. “I thought you weren’t one for these kinds of rules,” he whispered back.

“I’m not,” he said, “But the lady over there looks like she is.”

Sirius glanced over to a pew where a woman in a giant knit sweater was glaring right back. He looked away quickly.

“Help,” said Sirius, following Remus down the aisle. “I think she can smell my fear. She knows I don’t belong.”

Remus rolled his eyes, and sat down in a pew near the front. “Do I really need to give you the entire ‘everyone is welcome at church’ talk?”

“You say that as if that’s something anyone ever told me,” said Sirius. “With my family, it was more along the lines of, ‘nobody knows why you don’t go up in flames the second you enter church but don’t provoke God by being yourself at any point ever.’”

Remus shook his head. “I don’t understand why people insist on turning good things into reasons to be assholes to others.”

Sirius shrugged. “It’s humanity, I guess.”

Remus hummed. “I’m not so sure.”

He craned his head back to look up, and Sirius did the same. The ceiling was widely underwhelming, made of dark wood that seemed to threaten to collapse onto them at any moment. Still, they stayed like this for a long time.

At some point, Sirius closed his eyes. If he concentrated hard, he could almost understand why people would actually choose to go to church even if they weren’t forced to. He guessed the room was kind of pretty in a weird gothic way, and he could agree that it was nice to sit in a cool place on a hot day like this one. And he remembered not absolutely hating church choir - before he got old enough to start thinking, and then talking back, that was.

“I don’t know,” said Remus, and Sirius opened his eyes. Remus was tracing the edge of the pew before him with his fingers. “I don’t hate the concept of church. It used to be a nice place for people to get together and feel close to God. And then it turned into a place for people to be even more oppressed. I’d wish humans would just think for themselves, I don’t actually care if they believe in God or not.”

Sirius hummed. “I think it’s getting better, though,” he said. “Church, I mean. I have this friend, she has this mass she goes to every week where they do nothing but sing and have gay weddings and stuff and then they eat cake. Every week. She always wanted me to go, but I don’t think I’ll ever come around to that kind of thing.”

Remus shrugged. “You have other things, though. Music. And your concerts. And family.”

“I guess so,” said Sirius. He turned to look at Remus’s face. “With God being a real thing that exists and stuff,” he said, “Isn’t there supposed to be an underlying fairness to everything?”

Remus blinked. “If you want to phrase it like that, yes. That’s what The Divine Plan means, too, I think.”

“But why aren’t you allowed to live, then?” said Sirius. Remus looked away. “If everything is supposed to be fair, and follow The Divine Plan, why didn’t you have an angel looking after you?”

Remus was quiet for a long time. The woman at the other end of the church got up noisily, and left. Sirius started to wonder if he would be thrown out if he went and tried to play the organ. Then, he wondered if there was a way to integrate organ music into a song idea he’d had floating around his head for weeks now.

“I suppose,” said Remus finally, looking straight ahead, “Maybe everything isn’t fair, then. Or maybe being an angel is supposed to make up for what happened to me. Or maybe some people just are unlucky.”

Sirius hummed. “I think,” he said, and stopped. Then, “Don’t get me wrong, if I had any say in the matter, I would send you back in time and let you live your life any day. But also, right now, I’m very glad that you’re here.”

Remus smiled, and looked at him. “Me too, actually.”

***

**10 August, London, UK**

In theory, their big, final show in London always seemed like the most amazing part of the tour. In retrospect it often did, too, but right now? Sirius was giddy with the expectation of the giant show in his hometown, but more than anything, he was _exhausted_. He was so, so tired and wanted to do nothing but curl up in bed with Remus and sleep for two weeks.

No, he wanted James and Lily to meet him, first. He wanted to see if Remus would be as terrified of holding Harry as he was, and then he wanted Remus to say one of his brilliant sarcastic remarks, and he wanted Lily to laugh, and James to pretend to hold Harry’s ears closed like he didn’t accidentally cuss in front of him all the time.

They didn’t have the time to visit them today, and James and Lily were too occupied by settling into their new life to go to the show, which Sirius could understand if he really tried. But also, he hadn’t ever anticipated a tour to be over as much as this one.

Right now, though, they had slept in for too long and were practically already late for the soundcheck. And Sirius was sure that this was it. This was going to be the day that Joan was killing them both. Remus was going to survive, maybe, but only because he was kind of immortal. Or already dead, which amounted to the same thing.

He was definitely going to be dead if he was planning to take even a second longer in the bath.

Sirius pounded against the door. “Not to sound too much like you,” he said loudly, “But please, _please_ hurry.”

Remus voice came muffled from the other side.

“I didn’t understand a word of that,” said Sirius.

“I said, ‘Almost done, I'm just-‘”

Sirius waited. “’You're just-‘ what?”

There was no answer.

“If you’re not out here in ten seconds I’m coming in, I’m not playing around,” said Sirius.

Silence.

“Five,” said Sirius. “Four. Three. Two. One.”

The door was unlocked. Inside, the faucet was running. There was no Remus. Sirius looked behind the shower curtain. The bathroom had no window. He looked behind the shower curtain again.

He turned out the faucet.

He sat down on the floor, and tried to force air into his lungs.

***

Remus was brushing his teeth when he got pulled away. One second he was trying to shout back at Sirius through the toothpaste in his mouth, the next, he was sitting in a tiny restaurant opposite of a person he didn’t recognise, saying, “-brushing my teeth.”

“I can see that,” said the woman. She was neither old nor young. She was neither thin nor fat. She was, however, wearing lilac lipstick.

Remus looked at the toothbrush in his hand. He put it on the table between them, and swallowed the tooth paste. “Fucking disgusting,” he said, and looked around. He recognised the Pret a Manger signs above the small counter where a bored employee was standing with their phone. They were the only guests.

“Help yourself,” said the woman, and gestured to the paper cup in front of Remus. She had an unopened sandwich before her. He took a tentative sip, and guessed that it was green tea. She smiled, and started opening her sandwich.

“What is this?” he asked.

“This,” she said, “Is me telling you that you did a good job.”

“Metatron,” Remus guessed. The Voice of God didn’t have a preferred bodily appearance, as most angels didn’t, so it was hard to recognise her, sometimes. She was the one usually responsible for giving out assignments, and collecting angels back into heaven afterwards. Usually, though, you were just pulled back up, told that your assignment was over, and they called it a day.

Metatron coming down to earth to give an end-of-job-evaluation talk? Remus was confused.

“Correct,” said Metatron. “We’re very proud of you, Remus. You did very well.”

Remus didn’t try to keep his mouth shut. Being silent had never brought him anywhere. “Not that I would know, since I still don’t understand the point in me being here.”

“Well, to look after Sirius Black, of course,” she said. “According to The Div-“

“Yeah, sure,” said Remus, “But nothing _happened_ while I was here. I didn’t throw myself between Sirius and a bullet, I didn’t slap a needle out of his hand. I did nothing.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Metatron, smiling warmly. “Everyone could see that Sirius Black’s quality of life improved dramatically while you were with him. So much, in fact, that you’re not required down here any longer.”

Remus just stared at her. “So this is it, then?” he asked. “You’re pulling me back up, I’ll get laughed at for a few hundred years, and Sirius dies his natural death.”

Metatron frowned. “I don’t understand why you’re agitated,” she said. “You’ve been doing this job for long enough to _know_ these things.” Her face cleared up, and she smiled again. “I’m happy to inform you, though, that your pleasure at occupying this body and place hasn’t gone unnoticed. Because of your great work, we’re allowing you a small holiday on earth. You have a week to say your goodbyes until we send you home.”

Remus couldn’t help the bitter laugh that escaped his mouth. “How utterly fucking generous of you,” he said. “You see me _enjoying_ this life, and you offer me a _week_ -“

He closed his eyes, and tried to breathe. Anger didn’t get you anywhere with his kind.

“Let’s take a walk,” said Metatron and stood up.

She let the sandwich packet on the table, open, but untouched. She might just have forgotten about it. Remus took his tea, and followed.

***

Sirius’s phone wouldn't stop vibrating against his leg, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn it off because that would have meant facing all the notifications he knew he had from Joan. He couldn’t even breathe, not really. He felt like he hadn’t had enough air in his lungs for hours now, but that couldn’t be, because he wasn’t passing out.

He had been in the bathroom, and then he had been in his bed. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten there, but he was grateful for the blanket he could curl himself up in, until he breathed in and smelled Remus, and then he got caught in it while trying to kick it off, and then he was curling up without it. Sirius couldn’t get a single coherent thought into his head except the really bad ones, and he didn’t want those, he couldn’t stand those, he just wanted to go _home_.

Sirius really, really wanted to stop thinking. He thought of alcohol, but he didn’t have any in the house. They did go grocery shopping yesterday and Sirius had had a bottle of wine in hand, but Remus had taken it from him and put it away.

Now he could buy all the alcohol he wanted.

Tomorrow he would buy all the alcohol he wanted.

Right now, though. He needed to stop thinking right _now_. He knew the kind of thing he could get brought to his house at any time if he paid enough, and he knew they would definitely turn his mind off, and that was a wonderful idea, absolutely brilliant, and Sirius was finally pulling his phone out of his pocket.

He’d deleted all the numbers, but he’d memorised the London ones. He’d always been great with numbers.

He ignored the texts from Joan, and punched in the digits with shaking fingers, and pressed the phone to his ear.

The number wasn’t connected.

He tried the next one.

_You’re calling outside my business hours. Please try again on week days between 10 and 6._

He typed in the next one, but he couldn’t remember that one very well. Was it 876- or 768- or, or-

What was he doing. What the fuck was he _doing_. He’d been fine. He’d been fine for months now. He’d been so absolutely fucking fine, and Remus would be so disappointed, probably was, looking down at him from his fucking cloud- he would tell him to call someone else, to talk to people, to-

But James and Lily had Harry now. What kind of friend would he be to go running to them for something trivial like- He’d known Remus for how long? A month? This was so fucking stupid. He hadn’t even _died_ or anything.

 _Even with the baby and everything happening_ , they had said. _You can talk to us whenever._

He got up. He left his phone behind, not able to face the incoming texts, afraid that he would remember the correct number.

Sirius got his helmet, fully aware that it was a horrible idea to drive in his state, and left through his front door.

***

They were walking through St James’s Park. Remus didn’t fully remember getting there, but it wasn't the strangest thing that could happen while you were with a higher being.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m just trying to be logical now. My job was to protect Sirius Black, and ensure his happiness or whatever, right?”

Metatron’s face was completely blank.

“Right. So what if I would just keep doing that for a few more decades? Who would even notice? You know I’m usually garbage at this job, and nobody would miss me up there. When he dies, you can just, pull me back up, and we’ll call it a day.”

Metatron stopped walking, and sat down on a bench. Remus followed suit. They were facing the lake and a group of ducks that had started following a family of tourists eating pizza around, making them laugh.

“Why would you even want that?” said Metatron. Her face was still neutral.

Remus sighed, leaning back. He’d known that there was no sense in trying to make somebody like Metatron understand who’d died such a long time ago that probably not even God remembered anything about their time on earth.

“I know you don’t understand,” tried Remus, “But the only thing I ever wanted was a life.”

“But,” said Metatron, “You get to experience infinite lives, like this. I assumed this existence would be a gift for someone who loves life like you do.”

Remus shook his head. “All the good parts about life are the ones you need time for,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like home,” said Remus. “Like family. And belonging.”

Metatron frowned. “I see,” she said. “But you must understand that what you’re asking of us is impossible. You’re an angel for a reason. The Divine Plan-“

“Oh, fuck off with that Divine Plan of yours, will you,” said Remus. Metatron seemed unimpressed. “I don’t care. I get that what I’m asking for is something I can’t have, but you have _got_ to stop explaining things with something that nobody but you understands.”

Metatron smiled. “You wouldn’t want that,” she said. “Everybody knowing what was going to happen. It would take the fun out of life.” She looked over at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

Remus shrugged. “Let’s go, then,” he said. “If I can’t stay, I don’t want that vacation of yours.”

***

Sirius wondered if it was a bad sign that he didn’t remember getting there, but he did have his helmet under his arm, so that was something.

James’s smile vanished a second after he’d opened the door.

“Joan just called me,” he said. “Asking where you are.”

“I’m here,” he said dumbly.

Lily came up behind James. “Who’s-“ Her face fell when she saw Sirius, and she pulled him in by the arm. “Sirius, what happened?”

Sirius was crying. He didn’t think he’d been crying before now.

“I’m not okay,” Sirius said. “I’m really, really not okay. I need help.”

“Okay,” said James. He closed the door, and followed them to the living room. “We’re here. We can get help. Did something happen?”

“Remus,” said Sirius.

They pushed him into the couch, Lily sitting down beside him. Sirius tried to stop regretting coming here. He could have been numb by now.

James sat down on the coffee table before him. Harry was sleeping in his tiny bed on the other side of the room.

“What happened with Remus, Sirius?” asked Lily. She was stroking strands of hair out of his face, and he just really loved her.

“Remus is gone,” said Sirius again. He was ugly-crying and only vaguely cared. “He just left. It’s not his fault, but he’s not coming back, and it’s just all going to _shit_.”

Sirius wanted to go home. He wished the Potters were still alive. He wanted nothing but to sit in their living room and watch afternoon quiz shows with them.

“What do you mean it’s not his fault,” said James. “What is he doing giving you hope like this and then-“

“I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay long,” said Sirius. “I just thought it’d be longer than this. I’m just- I didn’t expect him to leave yet.”

“Okay,” said Lily, “Okay. I’m very sorry for you. Please don’t be mad at me for asking, but did you take anything? Have you been drinking?”

Sirius laughed, sounding sad and wrecked even to his own ears. “I’d wish. I’m not kidding. I wish I didn’t- I don’t know. I’m trying not to.” He breathed. “I nearly died, a month ago.”

“What?” said James. “What are you talking about?”

“Back in Belgium,” he said, “A month ago, when I didn’t text you back for a few days. I overdosed, and-“

_“ Sirius!”_

“It wasn’t that _bad_. I didn’t think it was. I was bored, and I overestimated myself, and it was just a stupid accident. I didn’t even miss a show, I was out of the hospital in a matter of days.”

“I can’t believe Joan let you go on with the tour,” said James. “Have you been seeing anyone, at least? Your therapist from last year?”

“That one was garbage, and you know it,” said Sirius. “It’s not- I begged Joan to let me keep working, it’s not their fault. They were just doing their job. I just- I was doing fine, and I couldn’t bear the thought of the public starting to talk again, and-“ He laughed again. “’Blacks aren’t quitters.’”

“Pads,” said Lily.

James’s expression was horrified. He grabbed Sirius by the arms. “Shut up,” he said, “Don’t say that. Your mother is stupid bitch, and she’s _nothing_ to you. To us. You know who cares about you like your family? Not the media, definitely not her, but _us_. And Joan. And my parents did, too. You know that if they were here they would give you the scolding of your lifetime and then tug you in a blanket and make you tea and soup and tell you you’re doing your best. Because that’s _true_. Okay?”

Sirius nodded. He still couldn’t stop crying. “I know. I know, but- I don’t-“ He forced a deep breath into his lungs, but it didn’t feel like it gave him any oxygen. “But I have to go, I have to do the show- I know I can do it, it’s a few more hours, I’m just going to take a nap there and then-“

“Fuck no,” said Lily. She stood up. “I’m calling Joan. You’re in no shape to be holding a concert, Sirius.”

“It’s the final show, Lily,” said Sirius. “I can’t just-“

“You can, and you will,” said James.

“Thousands of fans- of pounds- the money, I-“

“Joan,” said Lily into her phone. “Sirius is here with us. He’s in no shape to be doing the concert tonight. I’m afraid we’ll have to cancel.”

“ _Lily_ ,” begged Sirius.

She ignored him. “No, he wants to do it, of course. But I’m telling you he can’t. There’s no way. Yeah. No, you’re right. Yes. Wait a minute.”

She gave her phone to Sirius. “Joan, I’m telling you, I can-“

“Listen here, Black,” said Joan. “When Lily and James are saying there’s no way you’re doing that concert, then _there’s no way you’re doing that concert_. Don’t think any of us are just going easy on you. We’re the last people on earth to do that and you know it. Now, you are absolutely going to hear something from me about taking better care of yourself in the future, but I am not mad at you for having to cancel the concert today, okay? We’ll move the date, promise everyone that the whole band will be there, it’ll be fine. These things have happened with other bands, and they’ll happen again with you guys, and it’s not your fault. Okay? You got that?”

Sirius only managed to nod.

“ _Okay?_ ”

“Okay,” he forced out.

“Okay. Stop thinking about the show now, okay? And have Remus call me.”

“Remus isn’t here.”

“Oh,” said Joan, clearly surprised. “Where is he, then?”

“I don’t know,” said Sirius.

“Oh. Okay. Well, I’m sure he’ll show up. Get better soon, okay? Can you give me back to Lily?”

Sirius handed the phone over to Lily wordlessly, who left the room to finish the call.

“Now,” said James, “Do you want to tell me what exactly happened with Remus?”

***

“Are you sure?” asked Metatron. “A full week in this life, in this body, freely given to you? Why would you decline if you wish to stay?”

Remus felt like he was talking to a bloody wall. “What I want is a life, not a vacation.”

Metatron hummed. “Interesting,” she said. “Very interesting.” She glanced at him. “Do you want to know something?”

Remus just looked at her.

“This body of yours. You chose it, yes?”

“I know that’s not strictly allowed,” said Remus, “But-“

“Why the scars?” asked Metatron. “Why did you choose them?”

Remus’s hand went automatically to his face. He could feel the raises in his skin when he ran a finger down his nose, his cheek, his neck. “I don’t know,” he said. “They felt like they belonged there.”

Metatron smiled. “Extraordinary,” she said. Then, “This body, it’s yours.”

Remus blinked. “What?”

“I mean that it’s _yours._  It’s eerily similar to the one you died in, if not identical. You chose your original shape.”

Remus looked down at his hands. The same ones he’d looked at in this mysterious life he’d once lived, the one he thought he didn’t remember anything about.

“Oh,” he said, for lack of something more profound to say. “Where are the scars from, then?”

“Animal attack,” said Metatron. “If I’m not mistaken it was a wolf. The cause of your death, in the end. Rabies.”

Remus was perplexed enough that he laughed out loud. “You’re kidding,” he said. “Rabies. Of all the heroic deaths that could end a life too early.”

Metatron laid her head on one side, and frowned. “You can be so very human at times,” she said. “Only a human would wish for a heroic death.”

Remus sighed. “Let me stay one, then,” he said. “Let me stay here. Just let me die a normal death, not a heroic one. I will never be a sufficient angel, correct? So let me die a human.”

Metatron sucked in her lower lip, thinking. She let go, and said, “Okay.”

***

James couldn’t seem to stop laughing. Lily just stared at him.

“I swear,” said Sirius, “That I’m not on anything. Not since I was in the hospital. Well, except alcohol. But I’m sober _now_.”

Lily threw her hands in the air as if giving up. “Honestly, this might as well happen,” she said.

James wiped tears from his eyes. “ _Angels_. I can’t- Of all the things.”

Sirius had started breathing normally again at some point while desperately trying to make Lily and James believe what he was telling them. He didn’t even believe it himself, really.

“Of all _people_ ,” said Lily. “Is it rude that from what you told us, Remus doesn’t seem very, well, angelic?”

“He said he doesn’t have any ambitions to be a very good one,” said Sirius.

“ _I_ want a guardian angel,” said James. “No, scratch that. I want Harry to have one.”

“Oh,” said Lily, “That would be lovely. Maybe we can ask Remus about it?”

“I’m not sure you guys heard me when I said that Remus is gone,” he said. “His job is over. That’s why he didn’t want to be with me, because he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to stay.”

Lily and James just looked at him, sad understanding in their eyes.

“He was right, in the end,” said Sirius. “Wasn’t he? This would be easier if I’d stayed away, like he’d asked.”

James hesitated. “I’m not so sure about that,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “Me neither.” He rubbed a hand across his face, feeling bone tired all of a sudden. His heart rate had almost gone back to normal, but all his bones were aching. His eyes felt like he could tear up again at any moment but at the same time, his heart felt numb.

“I think I’m going to sleep,” he said, standing up from the couch. “Thank God I left my phone back at my place. I don’t think I’ll dare to open twitter again, ever. Everyone is going to hate me.”

“That’s not true,” said Lily. “Everyone will want the best for your health. And if not, they can go fuck themselves.”

Sirius snorted.

James stood beside him, and pulled him into a hug. Sirius rested his head on his friend’s shoulder, and just held on for a few long moments. He still had this. He would always have this. He was going to be alright, soon.

“Promise me we’ll talk about looking for a new therapist tomorrow,” said James.

Finally, Sirius let go. “Promise,” he said, although he hated it. He knew James was right.

***

Remus felt like he was in a trance.

 _I was just pulling your leg_ , Metatron had said. _I’m here to tell you that if you wish to do so, you may have a second chance at life. The Divine Plan was right, of course._

 _You’re kidding_ , Remus had said. _You’re not really telling me that this entire thing was part of The Divine Plan._

 _Oh, Remus. Everything is_.

He hadn’t moved from that park bench until the sun went down, and the air started to become chilly. He couldn’t believe it. He felt- unchanged. Like everything was the same way it had been, and like everything had changed. He wasn’t aware of his molecules anymore, of the way they were never truly in contact with anything around him, but when he thought about it, he hadn’t been in weeks.

Remus sat on his park bench in the middle of St James’s Park, and found that he was free to do anything for the first time since his memory reached.

He thought about driving, and driving away. He thought about small houses in the Netherlands. He thought about having a pet and going to university and having nothing to do and reading all the books in the world if he only hurried a little.

He thought about Sirius Black.

Yes. That was where he wanted to start.

He left the park, and looked around. Sirius would have known exactly where to go to get to his place, he knew his way around London in his sleep. Remus needed the help of his phone.

He had a million ignored calls and messages from Joan. Right, his job. He guessed he would have to put in some intentional effort now if he was going to be reliant on the money he made from it.

He ignored the notifications and opened the navigator app right when Joan tried calling again. Remus sighed, and accepted the call.

“Before you say anything, I’m sorry,” said Remus. “I’ve had a family emergency, and-“

“Yeah, yeah,” said Joan. “I’ll shout at you tomorrow about that. Are you with Sirius?”

“Honestly, I’m on my way to his place,” he said. “Why? Did something happen after the show?”

“Oh,” said Joan. “I thought you’d seen the tweets or something. Or read my _texts_. We had to cancel the concert. Lily called me, told me Sirius was doing badly. He’s with them, but I can’t reach her right now, and I just wanted to check up on him.”

“Can you give me their address?”

***

Sirius couldn’t sleep. Of all the things his brain tended to mess up for him, sleep was usually not one of them, and he was _pissed._  He’d tried tossing and turning for a few hours, listening to James and Lily talk faintly downstairs, talking about _him_ , and that didn’t help, at all. He was tired enough that his eyes wouldn’t stay open, but when he closed them and buried his face into his pillow all they did was slowly burn their way into his skull.

He couldn’t stop thinking about all the people standing in front of the concert hall that the news hadn’t reached in time, people that had driven all day to get there, their disappointed faces. He thought of Joan, how they must be running around, making phone calls, writing mails, being shouted at by people.

Sirius gave up at 1 am. Lily and James had gone to bed a few hours ago, and wasn’t that funny? They were really turning into parents, weren’t they. Sirius knew he was supposed to be happy, or at least amused, but all that he felt was a huge knot in his stomach.

He got out of bed, put on his jacket and boots. He felt in all his pockets, but his wallet wasn’t there, and neither were his cigarettes.

Sirius got James’s wallet and keys from the counter. He probably still owed him money, anyway. He left the house and immediately turned back. He left a note on the fridge, just in case somebody woke up and assumed he’d gotten some kind of bad idea.

Sirius had a lot of bad ideas at the moment. He followed none of them.

Instead, he left the house, and tried to remember the way to the nearest corner shop.

James and Lily’s neighbourhood wasn’t excessively nice, but it was nice enough that Sirius felt uncomfortable as he walked through the streets. He felt like on every corner there was an old woman peering out of her window wondering what somebody like Sirius was doing walking down this street, somebody who clearly didn’t belong. He walked a little faster, and pulled his hood on against the weirdly chilly night air.

They probably still had a few more summer days before them, but they were passing quickly. Summer was going to be over too soon and Sirius didn't know what he would do with himself. He’d always loved autumn, the promise of home the early setting sun gave him, the return to school, to his friends, to his family.

And now?

Sirius found that more than anything, he desperately wished to be able to time travel. Somewhere, someplace in the past, there was a young man who was about to die, who didn’t deserve it, who wasn’t ready. Sirius was sure that if he had any way of getting there, of knowing who Remus had been before he’d lost everything, he would be able to stop it, and they could be together.

But that was stupid, of course.

He finally reached the corner shop, and bought a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. He lit the first one, and made his way back.

Sirius knew he couldn’t have done the show. But he also knew that it was his fault for not anticipating this could happen, and for being too messed up to carry on despite it.

He wondered if his mother knew about the cancelled concert. He was sure most of the media was framing it like Sirius’s problem with substance abuse, the one they all had been so conveniently informed of by Peter the rat, was the cause for this mess. He was sure his mother would be pleased to see her predictions confirmed.

But also, wasn’t the media right? Hadn’t Remus appeared the day he’d been released from the hospital? Wasn’t this entire mess his own dumb fault, anyway? If only Sirius hadn’t been such a mess, hadn’t needed protection, he wouldn’t even have met Remus, and they would both be- What?

Happy?

For a single, toxic moment, Sirius wondered if Remus would return if Sirius’s life were to be in danger again. He thought of Harry, and physically shook his head, and refused to become Bella Swan in New Moon. That film had sucked _so_ hard.

Sirius turned into James’s and Lily’s street, and stopped. Their lights were turned on, the brightly-lit house looking surreal amongst the darkness that enveloped the rest of the street.

Sirius threw the remains of his cigarette into a gutter and picked up his pace. It was probably just Harry, wasn’t it? He’d started screaming and woke them up, and now they were trying to get him back to sleep? That’s a thing that happened with babies, right?

Still, he couldn’t shake off a weird feeling deep in his gut. He was nearly jogging by the time he reached the gate.

Sirius noticed the porch light turn on before he realised that somebody had opened the door. He stopped in his tracks and looked up just as Remus noticed him standing there, and stopped as well.

Sirius could feel his brain short-circuit. He couldn’t do anything but stare at Remus, lit by the house lights behind him, staring back, and slowly breaking out into a beautiful, beautiful grin.

He had never been so grateful for anything as now that Remus closed the distance between them and pulled Sirius into a hug, because otherwise, he was sure he would have stood there staring like an idiot for at least another hour.

“Where the fuck have you been?” said Remus against his shoulder.

Sirius wanted to pull him in tighter, but he still couldn’t quite feel his arms. “What do you mean ‘where the fuck have I been’? You literally died, you- you had vanished-”

Remus let go a little, and Sirius almost protested, but then Remus was holding his face in his hands so gently that Sirius’s entire body tingled with it. “Joan said you weren’t well, and then you just ran away in the middle of the night. I was about to run around searching for you. I mean, what were we supposed to think?”

Sirius blinked. “I left a note on the fridge,” he said. “I was just at the corner shop.”

Remus stared at him and then laughed, bending down with it and pressing his forehead against Sirius’s chest. His hands were gripping the lapels of Sirius’s leather jacket. “The fridge,” he groaned. “Who the fuck checks their fridge for notes?”

“It was the only place that had magnets,” he said. “I- Remus.”

He took the other by his arms, forcing him to look at him again. Sirius’s heart was aching, like it was reaching for something that he was not yet willing to let in before he knew it was really true.

Remus looked. His eyes were near-crazy, nothing like the detached expression he so often wore as a shield against everything, but pure bliss, relief, happiness.

Sirius opened his mouth, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He couldn’t. Not if a possible answer was sure to rip what was left of his heart finally out and leave him crumbled on the floor. He closed his eyes.

“Yes,” said Remus. His arms tightened in Sirius’s neck. “I’m staying, Sirius. With you. For as long as you want.”

Sirius wasn’t a crier. He swore he wasn’t. To his defence, everything around him seemed to conspire to change that at the moment.

But he didn’t care, because when he opened his eyes, Remus was tearing up as well, and then he said, “If you’ll have me,” and Sirius couldn’t help but laugh. He laughed a loud, wet laugh, and wanted to hit Remus over the head.

Remus let of Sirius's neck with one hand to wipe some of the tears off his cheek, but it was no use. Finally, he gave up and just pulled Sirius down to him, kissing him through both of their tears.

“Fuck you,” said Sirius between kisses, his voice unsteady. “Of course I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> i’m literally begging all of you to listen to [God Is a Woman by Rett Madison](https://open.spotify.com/album/1v5jmK7l1hbhMGEnpzJU0k?si=NvMjuZkiQLajRFE23M5LRQ). it’s a spiritual experience and i could never adequately describe the passion with which she sings it
> 
> Edit: I watched Good Omens earlier this week and realised that at least the whole 'Divine Plan' thing as well as St James's Park is stolen from that fabulous book. PleASE read or watch it if you haven't yet (if only for the way David Tennant walks I love it so much it's ridiculous and perfect)
> 
> Edit The Second: I need you to know that I took my visibly gay butt to the church in Nottingham (that I was describing off of Google images here) for the first time today and sat there staring at the ceiling like an idiot. there was no judgmental old lady, only a couple of EXTREMELY sweet old ladies who sold me christmas cards for a good cause. everyone is welcome at church my dudes
> 
> again, thanks to minnie, and to you, for reading. kudos and comments are love.


End file.
